Name: Shrimp and Tomato Salad
Ingredients: ripe tomatoes; cold boiled shrimps; lettuce leaves; mayonnaise dressing

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 ↓

Shrimp and Tomato Salad

Ingredients

ripe tomatoes
cold boiled shrimps
lettuce leaves
mayonnaise dressing

Directions

Cut the tops off the tomatoes and remove the insides.
Fill the tomato shells with cold boiled shrimps, with their backs up.
Set each tomato on a leaf of lettuce.
Pour mayonnaise dressing over the tomatoes and lettuce.

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).
Tomato + shrimptop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,689 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Shrimp + lettucetop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together430 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).