Name: Tomatoes Stuffed with Celery
Ingredients: smooth, round tomatoes; French dressing; celery; crisp lettuce leaves

Why it works: Celery and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,033 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Tomatoes Stuffed with Celery

Ingredients

smooth, round tomatoes
French dressing
celery
crisp lettuce leaves

Directions

Scald and peel the tomatoes.
Slice off the stem end and scrape out the seeds.
Chill the tomatoes in the refrigerator.
Cut the white part of the celery into small pieces and moisten with French dressing.
Fill the tomatoes with the celery mixture.
Place each stuffed tomato on a crisp lettuce leaf and serve as a salad.

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.

Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,033 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,377 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Tomato + lettucetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,655 recipes

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