Name: Russian Tomato and Sardine Salad
Ingredients: 6 medium-sized boneless sardines; 3 chilled tomatoes; Lettuce leaves; French dressing or 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 ↓

Russian Tomato and Sardine Salad

Ingredients

6 medium-sized boneless sardines
3 chilled tomatoes
Lettuce leaves
French dressing or mayonnaise

Directions

Prepare

Skin the sardines, remove heads and tails, and cut each into 3 or 4 pieces.
Peel the tomatoes, remove seeds, and cut them into small squares.
Mix the tomatoes with the sardines.

Assemble and serve

Arrange lettuce leaves in a salad bowl.
Sprinkle the tomato and sardine mixture on the lettuce.
Serve with French dressing or 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).

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

What each ingredient does

Sardines: Provide the main protein and rich, savoury flavour of the salad.
Tomatoes: Add moisture and gentle acidity that brightens the rich fish.
Lettuce leaves: Form a crisp base that holds the sardine and tomato mixture.
French dressing or mayonnaise: Adds fat and acidity to coat the fish and tomato and add moisture.

“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.