Name: Tomato, Celery and Pepper Salad
Ingredients: large firm tomatoes; chopped celery; red peppers; green peppers; coarse sea salt to taste; lettuce leaves; French dressing or mayonnaise dressing

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 ↓

Tomato, Celery and Pepper Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

Select large, firm tomatoes.
Make three cross cuts halfway into each tomato for a scalloped effect.

Assemble and serve

Fill the centers with chopped celery and red and green peppers, adding coarse sea salt to taste.
Place the tomatoes on lettuce leaves.
Pour French dressing or mayonnaise dressing over the 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).
Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 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).
Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 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

Large firm tomatoes: Form the salad's base and hold the celery and pepper filling.
Chopped celery: Adds a crisp, crunchy texture to the filling.
Red peppers: Add crisp texture and mild sweetness to the filling.
Green peppers: Add crisp texture and a slightly sharper, grassy flavor to the filling.