Name: Tomato Salad
Ingredients: ripe tomatoes; cream dressing; French dressing; Mayonnaise dressing

Why it works: Tomato and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 32% of all ingredient pairs, and 2,034 recipes mention both. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Tomato Salad

Ingredients

ripe tomatoes
cream dressing
French dressing
Mayonnaise dressing

Directions

Prepare

Slice the ripe tomatoes.
Arrange them tastefully on a dish.
Place the dish on ice or in a cold place.

Serve

Serve with cream, French, or mayonnaise 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.

Tomato + creamtop 32% of all pairs

Aroma overlaplow

Mentioned together2,034 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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, juiciness and fresh flavour of the salad.
Cream dressing: Adds richness and a creamy texture that softens the tomato's acidity.
French dressing: Adds a tangy, acidic note that brightens the tomatoes.
Mayonnaise dressing: Adds fat and a smooth, rich texture to the salad.

“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.