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Tomato Basket Op Plenty

A tomato shaped like a basket filled with string beans and walnuts, dressed with French dressing and served on lettuce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and beans match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,713 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tomato Basket Op Plenty

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cut the tomato into the shape of a basket, leaving the stem end on top as a handle.

  2. Fill the basket with the cold cooked string beans and walnut pieces.

  3. Moisten the mixture with French dressing.

  4. Serve the tomato basket on a lettuce leaf.

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. Tomato + beanstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,713 recipes

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

  2. Beans + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together500 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Walnut + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together491 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Beans + walnuttop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together162 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomato
Forms the edible basket that holds the filling and provides moisture and mild acidity.
String beans
Make up the bulk of the filling, adding body and a mild, crisp-tender texture.
English walnut meats
Add crunch and a rich, nutty flavor to the filling.
French dressing
Moistens the filling and adds acidity and sweetness to bind the flavors together.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, walnut, meat, lettuce):

  1. Beetrootfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, walnut, meat, lettuce. 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.

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