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Salad

Stuffed Tomato Salad

A salad of tomatoes filled with a cucumber and celery mixture, dressed with cream salad dressing and topped with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,409 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Stuffed Tomato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Scald the tomatoes to easily remove the skins.

  2. Cut a slice from the top of each tomato.

  3. Remove the seeds with a small spoon.

Make the filling

  1. Peel the cucumbers.

  2. Cut the cucumbers into dice.

  3. Cut the celery into dice.

  4. Season the celery with salt and pepper.

  5. Mix the celery with half of the dressing.

Assemble and serve

  1. Fill the tomato cups with the cucumber and celery mixture.

  2. Top each filled tomato with another spoon of dressing.

  3. Sprinkle finely chopped parsley over the top.

  4. Serve on a bed of 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. Cucumber + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,409 recipes

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

  2. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Tomato + cucumbertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,405 recipes

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

  5. Lettuce + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Ripe tomatoes
Provide the hollow cups that hold the filling and give the salad its main body.
Cucumbers
Add crisp, watery texture and a fresh, cool bite to the filling.
Celery
Adds a crunchy texture and a mild, savory flavor to the filling.
Cream salad dressing
Adds richness and moisture, binding the filling and coating the vegetables.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, lettuce, pepper, celery, cream, parsley):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, lettuce, pepper, celery, cream, parsley. 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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