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Salad

Macedonia Salad

A chilled tomato and canned meat salad served on lettuce with mayonnaise dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Macedonia Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the tomato gelatin

  1. Season the strained tomatoes with salt and pepper.

  2. Add the can or bottle of macedones.

  3. Strain the tomato juice and dissolve it in 1 tablespoon of gelatin.

  4. Stir the gelatin mixture into the strained tomatoes.

  5. Pour the mixture into molds and refrigerate until cold.

Serve

  1. Serve on lettuce leaves with mayonnaise 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. Tomato + lettucetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,655 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + lettucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

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

  4. Gelatin + lettucetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together128 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Tomato + gelatintop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-nonanal (fatty, waxy).

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

What each ingredient does

Strained tomatoes
Form the main body and flavor of the salad.
Gelatin
Sets the tomato mixture so it holds its shape when chilled in molds.
Macedones
Adds the mixed vegetable pieces that give the salad its character and texture.

The step that matters

Dissolve the gelatin fully before stirring it in. Gelatin only sets properly when fully dissolved and evenly distributed. Lumps or undissolved granules leave soft spots, and the mixture may not hold its shape when unmolded.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, gelatin, lettuce):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, gelatin, 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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