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Salad

Tomato Salad

A salad of sliced tomatoes dressed with a vinaigrette made from egg yolks, raw egg, olive oil, vinegar, mustard, salt, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Tomato Salad

Why it works: Tomato and olive are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,539 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Tomato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Set the sliced tomatoes on ice.

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, beat the yolks of the hard-boiled eggs and the raw egg.

  2. Add salt, mustard, and cayenne pepper to the egg mixture.

  3. Slowly whisk in the olive oil a little at a time.

  4. Continue adding vinegar slowly until the dressing reaches the desired consistency and taste.

Serve

  1. Pour the dressing over the chilled tomatoes just before serving.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + olivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,539 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

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

  3. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Mustard + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Emulsify the olive oil into a thick, stable dressing.
Raw egg
Adds body and helps bind the emulsified dressing.
Olive oil
Provides fat and richness, forming the body of the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the oil.
Tomatoes
Provide the main fresh, juicy base of the salad.

The step that matters

Adding the olive oil. Oil must be whisked in slowly, a little at a time, so the egg yolks can emulsify it. Adding it too fast causes the dressing to split and separate.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, egg, pepper, olive, vinegar):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Cucumberfits better
  3. Eggplantfits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, egg, pepper, olive, vinegar. 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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