Name: Mexican Salad
Ingredients: 6 ripe tomatoes; 1 green mango pepper, seeds removed; 3 medium-sized onions; 2 or 3 stalks of celery; salt to taste; pepper to taste; vinegar to taste; ice

Why it works: Tomato and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,377 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Mexican Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Chop the tomatoes, green mango pepper, onions, and celery coarsely.

Season and serve

Season with salt, pepper, and vinegar to taste.
Chill the salad and serve it with ice.

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 + celerytop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Tomato + mangotop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together225 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Mango + peppertop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together471 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,518 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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, juice and fresh sweetness of the salad.
Onions: Add sharp pungency that mellows as the salad chills.
Celery: Adds crisp texture and a mild, fresh vegetal crunch.
Green mango pepper: Contributes grassy, mildly bitter flavor and crisp texture.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, mango, pepper, celery, vinegar):

Capsicumfits better
Carrotfits better
Cucumberfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, mango, pepper, celery, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.