Name: Tomato Stuffed with Sardines
Ingredients: large ripe tomatoes; boneless sardines; lemon juice; white pepper

Why it works: Tomato and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,592 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Tomato Stuffed with Sardines

Ingredients

large ripe tomatoes
boneless sardines
lemon juice
white pepper

Directions

Select large ripe tomatoes of uniform size and carefully pare them with a sharp knife.
Set the tomatoes on ice to harden and cut out the hearts, leaving the walls whole.
Skim the boneless sardines and lay them on tissue paper to absorb the oil.
Scrape the sardines as you would pick codfish and mix in a little lemon juice and a dash of white pepper.
Toss and work the mixture with a silver fork until smooth, then fill the tomatoes with it.

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.

Tomato + lemontop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,592 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Lemon + white peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,658 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Tomato + white peppertop 29% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together226 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl butyrate (fruity, apple).