Name: Tomato Salad
Ingredients: 3 medium heads of lettuce; 1 can of tomatoes (drained) or 6 fresh tomatoes; 2 cold boiled potatoes; 1 hard-boiled egg; 2 teaspoons of salad dressing; 3 teaspoons of sugar; weak vinegar to fill the cup; coarse sea salt to taste

Why it works: Tomato and potato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and 2,798 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tomato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Chop the lettuce, tomatoes, cold boiled potatoes, and hard-boiled egg finely.
Mix all the chopped ingredients together in a bowl.

Make the dressing

In a separate cup, combine the salad dressing and sugar.
Fill the cup with weak vinegar and stir well.

Serve

Pour the dressing over the salad and season with coarse sea salt 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.

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 + potatotop 5% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together2,798 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Lettuce + tomatotop 6% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together1,655 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Lettuce + potatotop 7% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together322 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Lettuce + vinegartop 14% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together2,370 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together20,806 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Lettuce: Forms the leafy bulk of the salad and provides crisp texture.
Tomatoes: Add juiciness and a bright, acidic freshness to the salad.
Cold boiled potatoes: Add starchy body and a soft, filling texture to the salad.
Hard-boiled egg: Adds richness and a soft, creamy texture to the salad.
Sugar: Balances the acidity of the vinegar and dressing with gentle sweetness.

Flavor stand-ins for the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lettuce, tomato, egg, sugar, vinegar):

Cucumberbetter flavor fit
Capsicumbetter flavor fit
Mustardbetter flavor fit
Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, tomato, egg, sugar, vinegar. 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.