Name: Stuffed Tomatoes
Ingredients: nice solid tomatoes; celery; tomato pulp; sliced green or canned corn; salt; pepper; mustard; stale bread crumbs

Why it works: Celery and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Stuffed Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Cut off the stem ends of the tomatoes and scoop out the pulp, leaving a shell about ¼ inch thick.
Chop equal parts of celery, tomato pulp, and sliced corn.
Season the mixture with salt, pepper, and mustard.
Add enough stale bread crumbs to thicken the mixture.
Fill the tomato shells with the mixture and bake.

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.

Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,169 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,377 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Tomato + corntop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,099 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 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

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, celery, corn, pepper, bread):

Capsicumfits better
Carrotfits better
Potatofits better
Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, celery, corn, pepper, bread. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.