Name: Tomato Salad
Ingredients: ripe tomatoes; mayonnaise dressing; parsley

Why it works: Tomato and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and 5,398 recipes mention both. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Tomato Salad

Ingredients

ripe tomatoes
mayonnaise dressing
parsley

Directions

Chill the ripe tomatoes thoroughly.
Slice the tomatoes and arrange them on a flat dish.
Place 1 teaspoon of mayonnaise dressing in the center of each slice.
Add a border of parsley around the dish and a sprig between the slices of tomato.

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 + parsleytop 8% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together5,398 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Ripe tomatoes: Provide the main body of the salad and its fresh, juicy flavor.
Mayonnaise dressing: Adds richness and fat that carries flavor across the tomato slices.

“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.