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Tomato Basket Appetizer

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Tomato Basket Appetizer

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Take one tomato for each person.

  2. Cut a ½ inch strip for a handle on the smooth side.

  3. Cut crosswise on both sides to the handle.

  4. Scoop out the bottom in four sections and remove pulp under the handle.

  5. Fill the first section with chopped egg whites, the second with caviar, the third with riced yolks, and the fourth with minced crab meat.

  6. 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 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. Crab + meattop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together448 recipes

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

  3. Egg + caviartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together101 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Crab + lettucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together111 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Tomato + meattop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,438 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, caviar, crab, meat, lettuce):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Cucumberfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, caviar, crab, meat, lettuce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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