Name: Tomato Salad
Ingredients: firm ripe tomatoes; Spanish onion; chopped parsley; pepper; salt; moist or castor sugar; tarragon or malt vinegar; salad oil

Why it works: Parsley and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 1,563 recipes mention both. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Tomato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Cut the tomatoes into slices.
Lay them in a salad bowl with thinly cut rings of Spanish onion.
Sprinkle with chopped parsley, pepper, salt, and a pinch of sugar.
Dress with tarragon or malt vinegar and oil.
Serve with a bottle of 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.

Parsley + tarragontop 1% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together1,563 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together34,122 recipes

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

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together2,399 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Tomato + tarragontop 6% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together391 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned 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

What each ingredient does

Firm ripe tomatoes: Provide the main body and juice that combine with the dressing.
Spanish onion: Adds sharp, pungent aroma and bite that mellows slightly when it sits.
Chopped parsley: Adds fresh, herbal aroma and a bright green note.
Moist or castor sugar: Adds a little sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Tarragon or malt vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the tomatoes and lifts the flavour.
Salad oil: Adds fat that carries flavour and gives the dressing a smooth mouthfeel.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, parsley, pepper, sugar, tarragon):

Capsicumbetter flavor fit
Carrotbetter flavor fit
Shallotbetter flavor fit
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, parsley, pepper, sugar, tarragon. 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.