Skip to main content
Main

Tomato Surprise

A stuffed tomato filled with shredded cabbage salad dressed in a sweet and tangy vinaigrette.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cabbage and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,645 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tomato Surprise

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Peel the tomatoes and cut off the tops to use as covers.

  2. Scoop out the insides of the tomatoes and place them in a bowl.

Make the dressing

  1. In a saucepan, combine sugar, egg, dry mustard, butter, vinegar, salt, and pepper.

  2. Beat the mixture together and boil for 5 minutes, stirring constantly.

  3. Pour the dressing over the shredded cabbage and mix well.

Assemble and serve

  1. Fill the hollowed tomatoes with the cabbage salad.

  2. Replace the tops of the tomatoes and 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. Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

  2. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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

Cabbage
Forms the bulk of the salad and provides a crisp, crunchy texture.
Egg
Thickens the dressing as it cooks, giving it a smooth, creamy body.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the sugar and cuts the richness of the dressing.
Sugar
Sweetens the dressing and offsets the sharpness of the vinegar.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel to the dressing.

The step that matters

Boil the dressing while stirring constantly. The egg must be cooked enough to thicken the dressing, but constant stirring prevents it from scrambling or sticking to the pan. Heating unevenly can leave lumps in the sauce.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, sugar, egg, mustard, butter, vinegar, pepper):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Radishfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, sugar, egg, mustard, butter, vinegar, pepper. 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesRed CabbageRed Cabbage65 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipes