Name: Tomato Caviar
Ingredients: slices of bread; caviar; tomato slices; mayonnaise; coarse sea salt

Why it works: Bread and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,013 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Tomato Caviar

Ingredients

Directions

Cut the bread into rounds using a round cutter.
Spread a generous layer of caviar on each bread round.
Top with a thin slice of tomato spread with stiff mayonnaise.
Sprinkle with coarse sea salt to taste.

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.

Bread + tomatotop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,013 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Bread + caviartop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together65 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Caviar + tomatotop 31% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together14 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).