Name: R Tpe Tomato Salad
Ingredients: ripe tomatoes; celery, cut into ½ inch pieces; whites of hard boiled eggs, cut into large pieces; mayonnaise or cooked dressing; lettuce leaves

Why it works: Celery and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and 2,033 recipes mention both. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

R Tpe Tomato Salad

Ingredients

ripe tomatoes
celery, cut into ½ inch pieces
whites of hard boiled eggs, cut into large pieces
mayonnaise or cooked dressing
lettuce leaves

Directions

Prepare

Slice ripe tomatoes and remove the seeds.
Cut celery into ½ inch pieces.
Cut the whites of hard boiled eggs into large pieces.

Assemble and serve

Layer the celery and egg whites on top of each tomato slice.
Cover with mayonnaise or cooked dressing.
Serve on lettuce leaves.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together2,033 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together3,377 recipes

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

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together1,655 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Egg + lettucetop 30% of all pairs

Aroma overlaplow

Mentioned together3,301 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Celery + eggtop 34% of all pairs

Aroma overlaplow

Mentioned together6,334 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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 and juicy base of the salad.
Celery: Adds a crisp, crunchy texture against the soft tomato.
Hard boiled eggs: Add a mild, firm texture and body to the salad.
Mayonnaise or cooked dressing: Adds richness and fat that carries flavor and moisture over the tomato.

Flavor stand-ins for the lettuce

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

Capsicumbetter flavor fit
Carrotbetter flavor fit
Cucumberabout as good a flavor fit
Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, celery, egg. 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.