Name: Tomato Salad, Boston Stfle
Ingredients: tomatoes; coarse sea salt; sugar; lemon juice; thick double cream

Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and 43,450 recipes mention both. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Tomato Salad, Boston Stfle

Ingredients

Directions

Scald, peel, and slice the tomatoes.
Arrange the tomatoes on a salad plate.
Season with coarse sea salt, sugar, and a little lemon juice.
Pour thick double cream over the salad.
Serve immediately.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Tomato + lemontop 11% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together4,592 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs

Aroma overlaplow

Mentioned together53,532 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Lemon + creamtop 30% of all pairs

Aroma overlaplow

Mentioned together15,640 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Tomato + creamtop 32% of all pairs

Aroma overlaplow

Mentioned together2,034 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

Sugar and lemon share little aroma chemistry, yet 53,532 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Flavor stand-ins for the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, sugar, cream):

Vanillabetter flavor fit
Cherrybetter flavor fit
Avocadobetter flavor fit
Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, sugar, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).