Name: Stuffed Tomatoes
Ingredients: round tomatoes of equal size; celery, finely chopped; mayonnaise; small 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 ↓

Stuffed Tomatoes

Ingredients

round tomatoes of equal size
celery, finely chopped
mayonnaise
small lettuce leaves

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

Peel and scoop out the center of the tomatoes from the stem end.
Place the tomatoes on ice until ready to serve.

Fill and serve

Mix the chopped celery with mayonnaise and fill the tomatoes, letting it rise above the top.
Spread a little mayonnaise on small lettuce leaves and place a stuffed tomato in the center of each leaf.
Arrange the stuffed tomatoes in a circle on a flat dish.

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).

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

What each ingredient does

Round tomatoes: Serve as hollow shells that hold the celery filling.
Celery: Adds crisp texture and a fresh, mild crunch to the filling.
Mayonnaise: Binds the chopped celery and adds richness and moisture to the filling.