Name: Green Corn Salad
Ingredients: young corn on the cob; water; coarse sea salt; thick mayonnaise; firm tomatoes; lettuce leaves

Why it works: Corn and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,099 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Green Corn Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Boil young corn on the cob in slightly salted water for 10 minutes.
Wrap the corn in a soft towel until cool.
Cut the corn from the cob and mix it with thick mayonnaise.
Chill the mixture on ice.
Peel the tomatoes and cut a slice from the stem end.
Scoop out part of the pulp and fill the hollow with the salad mixture.
Chill the filled tomatoes on ice until ready to serve.
Serve in nests of lettuce leaves with a spoonful of mayonnaise on top.

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.

Corn + tomatotop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,099 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Tomato + lettucetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,655 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Corn + lettucetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together270 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).