Name: Peanut Salad
Ingredients: 4 medium tomatoes; 1 cup peanuts; ¼ cup mayonnaise; 1 cup French bread crumbs; broth (for soaking)

Why it works: Tomato and bread 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 ↓

Peanut Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Hollow the tomatoes and save the insides for another use.
Blanch the peanuts or rub off the brown skin with a towel.

Make and fill

Pound the peanuts in a mortar and mix with mayonnaise until smooth.
Fill the hollowed tomatoes with the peanut mixture.
For a quicker option, mix peanut butter with dry French bread crumbs soaked in broth and mayonnaise, then use as a filling.

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 + breadtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,013 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Tomato + peanuttop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together315 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Peanut + breadtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together97 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Peanuts: Provide the main body and nutty flavor of the filling.
Mayonnaise: Adds moisture and richness, binding the peanuts into a smooth paste.
French bread crumbs: Soak up broth to add moisture and body in the quicker version.