Name: Tomatoes Stuffed with Nuts and Celery
Ingredients: 4 large tomatoes; 1 cup English walnuts or pecans, chopped; 1 cup celery, finely chopped; ½ cup mayonnaise; Lettuce leaves for serving; Bread slices, cut into rounds

Why it works: Walnut and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 491 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Tomatoes Stuffed with Nuts and Celery

Ingredients

4 large tomatoes
1 cup English walnuts or pecans, chopped
1 cup celery, finely chopped
½ cup mayonnaise
Lettuce leaves for serving
Bread slices, cut into rounds

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

Peel the tomatoes and cut out a circular piece at the stem end of each.
Scoop out the flesh to form cups and chill thoroughly.

Fill and serve

In a bowl, mix the chopped nuts, celery, and mayonnaise.
Fill the chilled tomato cups with the nut and celery mixture.
Serve on lettuce leaves.

Variation

For a variation, slice the tomatoes into thick pieces and layer with rounds of mayonnaise‑spread bread.
Top with more mayonnaise and arrange olives in a star shape.

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.

Walnut + lettucetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together491 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
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).
Walnut + celerytop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together852 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
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

Tomatoes: Form the hollow cups that hold the filling and provide fresh, juicy moisture.
English walnuts or pecans: Add crunch and a rich, toasty texture against the soft filling.
Celery: Adds crisp texture and a fresh, mildly vegetal flavour.
Mayonnaise: Binds the nuts and celery together and adds fat for a creamy, moist filling.

The step that matters

Chill the tomato cups thoroughly. Cold tomato shells stay firm and hold their shape, while warm ones soften and release juice that thins the mayonnaise filling.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, celery, lettuce, bread):

Beansfits better
Chickpeafits better
Lentilsfits better
Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, celery, lettuce, bread. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

Tomato Soup526 recipes

Brown Bread461 recipes

Cream of Celery Soup113 recipes

Cream of Tomato Soup107 recipes

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Tomatoes Stuffed with Nuts and Celery