Name: Tomato Salad
Ingredients: Tomatoes; Lettuce leaves; Mayonnaise; Cream of Horseradish Sauce

Why it works: Lettuce and horseradish share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 79 recipes mention both. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Tomato Salad

Ingredients

Tomatoes
Lettuce leaves
Mayonnaise
Cream of Horseradish Sauce

Directions

Skin the tomatoes by dropping them into boiling water for a moment, then placing them in cold water and peeling.
Chill the tomatoes, slice them, and arrange on lettuce leaves.
If the slices are in a single layer, place a portion of mayonnaise on top of each slice.
If there are several layers, serve the dressing on the side.
For variety, use Cream of Horseradish Sauce instead of mayonnaise.

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.

Lettuce + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together79 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Tomato + lettucetop 6% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together1,655 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together4,787 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Horseradish + saucetop 12% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together775 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Tomato + horseradishtop 13% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together415 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, cream, horseradish, sauce):

Mustardbetter flavor fit
Cucumberabout as good a flavor fit
Beetrootabout as good a flavor fit
Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, cream, horseradish, sauce. 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).