Name: Tomato and Onion Salad
Ingredients: 6 tomatoes, sliced; 1 large onion; salad dressing

Why it works: Tomato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,633 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tomato and Onion Salad

Ingredients

6 tomatoes, sliced
1 large onion
salad dressing

Directions

Prepare

Boil or bake the onion until tender.
Slice the tomatoes and onion.

Assemble

Combine the tomatoes and onion in a bowl.
Add salad dressing to taste.

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.

Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,633 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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes: Provide the fresh, juicy body and acidity of the salad.
Onion: Adds sharp aroma and flavor, mellowed by boiling or baking until tender.
Salad dressing: Adds moisture and seasoning that coats the tomatoes and onion.

“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.