Name: Tomato and Beet Salad
Ingredients: 4 large beets; 6 large tomatoes; ½ pint mayonnaise; 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 ↓

Tomato and Beet Salad

Ingredients

4 large beets
6 large tomatoes
½ pint mayonnaise
lettuce leaves

Directions

Prepare

Cook the beets until tender, then chill them.
Cut the chilled beets into ¼-inch squares.
Peel the tomatoes and cut them into squares.

Assemble and serve

Combine the beets and tomatoes in a bowl.
Pour the mayonnaise over the mixture and toss gently.
Serve 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).

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

What each ingredient does

Beets: Provide the main body, earthy sweetness and firm texture once cooked and chilled.
Tomatoes: Add moisture and a bright, acidic note that balances the sweetness of the beets.
Mayonnaise: Adds fat and creaminess, binding the diced vegetables together with a rich coating.

“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.