Name: Lamb's Tongue Salad
Ingredients: Lamb's tongue; Blanched lettuce; Stiff mayonnaise; Tomato jelly

Why it works: Lettuce and tomato 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 ↓

Lamb's Tongue Salad

Ingredients

Lamb's tongue
Blanched lettuce
Stiff mayonnaise
Tomato jelly

Directions

Boil the lamb's tongue until tender, then cool and slice it.
Arrange the slices on a bed of blanched lettuce.
Top with stiff mayonnaise.
In the center of the dish, mound cubed tomato jelly.

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.

Lettuce + tomatotop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,655 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Lamb + tomatotop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together979 recipes

Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Lamb + lettucetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together188 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).