Name: Tomato Salad
Ingredients: raw ripe tomatoes; minced chives or stems of spring onions; olive oil; freshly ground black pepper; coarse sea salt; vinegar; tarragon or aromatic vinegar; minced herbs; strips of red or green capsicum

Why it works: Tomato and olive are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 15,539 recipes mention both. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Tomato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Slice the tomatoes horizontally and remove the seeds.
Sprinkle the tomatoes with minced chives or spring onion stems.
Drizzle with olive oil and season with black pepper and coarse sea salt.
Add a larger amount of vinegar due to the sweetness of the tomatoes.
Optionally, use tarragon or aromatic vinegar for added flavor.
Sprinkle minced herbs and strips of capsicum over the salad.

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.

Tomato + olivetop 1% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together15,539 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Chive + tarragontop 1% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together589 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Tomato + capsicumtop 1% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together10,520 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + capsicumtop 2% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together34,571 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Olive + capsicumtop 3% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together14,677 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the chive

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, olive, pepper, vinegar, tarragon, capsicum):

Cucumberbetter flavor fit
Lettucebetter flavor fit
Eggplantbetter flavor fit
Chivethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, olive, pepper, vinegar, tarragon, capsicum. 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).