Name: Stuffed Tomato Salad
Ingredients: large tomatoes; mayonnaise; cabbage; chopped nuts; heart of lettuce leaves

Why it works: Cabbage and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 622 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Stuffed Tomato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Cut a slice off the top of each large tomato and scoop out the insides.
Shred the tender leaves of the cabbage very finely and mix with the tomato insides.
Add mayonnaise to the mixture as desired and fill the tomato cups.
Chill thoroughly and serve on lettuce leaves, sprinkled with chopped nuts.

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.

Cabbage + lettucetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together622 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Tomato + lettucetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,655 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Nuts + lettucetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together174 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).
Tomato + cabbagetop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together333 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Tomato + nutstop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).