Name: Stuffed Tomato Salad
Ingredients: equal amounts of cucumbers; equal amounts of cabbage; equal amounts of onions; salt; pepper; sugar; tomatoes; salad dressing

Why it works: Cucumber and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,405 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Stuffed Tomato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Chop cucumbers, cabbage, and onions into equal amounts.
Season the mixture with salt, pepper, and sugar.

Assemble and serve

Stuff the mixture into hollowed-out tomatoes.
Drizzle salad dressing over the stuffed tomatoes.

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 their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Cucumber + tomatotop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,405 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,081 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Cucumber + cabbagetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together722 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Cabbage + oniontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,001 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers: Adds crisp, watery texture and fresh bulk to the filling.
Cabbage: Adds crunch and bulk that holds its texture in the filling.
Onions: Adds sharp aroma and bite to the filling.
Tomatoes: Serve as hollow edible containers for the salad filling.
Salad dressing: Adds moisture, fat and seasoning over the stuffed tomatoes.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, cabbage, pepper, sugar, tomato):

Capsicumfits better
Lettucefits better
Cauliflowerfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, cabbage, pepper, sugar, tomato. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.