Name: Surprise Salad
Ingredients: large tomatoes; hard boiled eggs; salad dressing; lettuce leaves

Why it works: Tomato and lettuce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,655 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Surprise Salad

Ingredients

large tomatoes
hard boiled eggs
salad dressing
lettuce leaves

Directions

Remove the insides of the large tomatoes to create cups.
Place a hard boiled egg, shell removed, into each tomato cup.
Cover the eggs with salad dressing.
Serve the filled tomatoes on lettuce leaves.

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 + lettucetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,655 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Egg + lettucetop 30% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,301 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Tomato + eggtop 34% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together5,890 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Large tomatoes: Form the cups that hold the filling and add fresh, juicy body to the dish.
Hard boiled eggs: Provide the main filling, adding rich texture and substance to each tomato cup.
Salad dressing: Coats the eggs, adding moisture, fat and tangy flavour to the filling.