Skip to main content
Main

Cheese Salad and Tomatoes

A chilled Neufchatel cheese roll stuffed into sliced tomatoes, served on lettuce with dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Olive and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,539 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Cheese Salad and Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cheese filling

  1. Moisten Neufchatel cheese with cream or French dressing.

  2. Add chopped nuts and olives to the cheese mixture.

  3. Shape the mixture into a long roll and chill it.

  4. Cut the chilled cheese roll into slices ½ inch thick.

Stuff and serve

  1. Make 3 cuts in each whole tomato without cutting all the way through.

  2. Insert slices of cheese into the cuts of the tomatoes.

  3. Serve the stuffed tomatoes on lettuce leaves with additional 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.

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.

  1. Olive + tomatotop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,539 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Olive + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Tomato + lettucetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Cheese + olivetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,802 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (apple, fatty).

  5. Cheese + tomatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,896 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Neufchatel cheese
Forms the creamy, soft base that holds the filling together and gives it body.
Cream or french dressing
Moistens the cheese so it becomes spreadable and easier to shape and slice.
Chopped nut meats
Add crunch and a rich, nutty flavour that contrasts with the soft cheese.
Olives
Add salty, briny flavour that cuts through the richness of the cheese.
Whole tomatoes
Serve as the juicy, acidic shell that holds the cheese filling.

The step that matters

Chill the cheese roll before slicing. Soft cheese stays firm when cold, so chilling lets the roll hold its shape and cut into clean, even slices instead of smearing or crumbling.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cheese, meat, olive, cream, tomato):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Spinachfits about as well
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, meat, olive, cream, tomato. 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.

You might also like

Meatless Tomato SoupMeatless Tomato Soup23 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesMacaroni and CheeseMacaroni and Cheese102 recipes