Name: Tomato Salad
Ingredients: 2 heads of lettuce; 2 hard boiled eggs; ½ pound tomatoes; Salad dressing

Why it works: Lettuce and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and 1,655 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tomato Salad

Ingredients

2 heads of lettuce
2 hard boiled eggs
½ pound tomatoes
Salad dressing

Directions

Prepare

Wash and dry the lettuce with a clean cloth.
Dip the tomatoes in boiling water and remove the skins.
Cut the tomatoes into quarters.

Assemble and serve

Break the lettuce into nine pieces and place in a salad bowl.
Decorate the salad with the quartered tomatoes and chopped eggs.
Serve with salad dressing.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Lettuce + tomatotop 6% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together1,655 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Lettuce + eggtop 30% of all pairs

Aroma overlaplow

Mentioned together3,301 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Egg + tomatotop 34% of all pairs

Aroma overlaplow

Mentioned together5,890 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Lettuce: Forms the bulk of the salad and provides crisp, watery texture.
Hard boiled eggs: Add richness and a soft, firm texture as a garnish.
Tomatoes: Add juiciness, acidity and fresh flavour to the salad.

Flavor stand-ins for the lettuce

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

Capsicumbetter flavor fit
Cucumberbetter flavor fit
Asparagusbetter flavor fit
Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, tomato. 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).

“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.