Name: Tomato and Egg Salad
Ingredients: ½ cup melted butter; Tomatoes; Eggs; Seasonings; Lettuce leaves; Mayonnaise

Why it works: Tomato and lettuce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and 1,655 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tomato and Egg Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Chop the eggs finely and mix with melted butter and seasonings.
Pack the mixture tightly in a tumbler and chill.
When ready to serve, cut the tomatoes into ½ inch slices.
Remove the egg mixture from the glass and cut into ½ inch slices.
Layer a slice of tomato, a slice of egg, and top with another slice of tomato.
Arrange on a lettuce leaf and serve with mayonnaise.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Tomato + lettucetop 6% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together1,655 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Butter + tomatotop 22% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together6,918 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Butter + lettucetop 25% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together2,287 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Egg + lettucetop 30% of all pairs

Aroma overlaplow

Mentioned together3,301 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Flavor stand-ins for the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, tomato, egg):

Capsicumbetter flavor fit
Potatobetter flavor fit
Asparagusbetter flavor fit
Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, tomato, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).