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Salad

Mayonnaise of Tomatoes

A salad of sliced tomatoes topped with mayonnaise served on lettuce leaves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and lettuce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,655 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Mayonnaise of Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Scald the tomatoes quickly and remove the skins.

  2. Let the tomatoes cool completely.

  3. Cut the tomatoes into several slices without removing them to preserve their shape.

Serve

  1. Serve the tomatoes on a lettuce leaf with a generous spoonful of mayonnaise sauce on top.

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

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

  2. Tomato + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,469 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sauce + lettucetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,019 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provides the juicy, slightly acidic body of the salad.
Mayonnaise sauce
Adds fat and creaminess that balance the tomatoes' acidity.
Lettuce leaves
Offers a crisp, cool base that holds the tomato slices.

The step that matters

Let the tomatoes cool completely before slicing. Warm tomatoes have soft, loose flesh that tears and slumps when cut. Once cooled, the flesh firms up, so the slices hold their shape and stay neat under the mayonnaise.

Swap the lettuce

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Eggplantfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, sauce. 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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