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Salad

Frozen Tomato Salad

A chilled tomato salad with whipped cream, served on lettuce leaves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,377 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Frozen Tomato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the puree

  1. In a pot, combine tomatoes, celery, and onion. Cook over medium heat until soft.

  2. Mash the mixture through a sieve to obtain 1 cup of thick puree.

  3. Stir in salt and paprika. Allow to cool.

Freeze and serve

  1. Fold in the whipped cream gently.

  2. Pour the mixture into a mold and pack it in ice and coarse sea salt for 3 hours.

  3. Turn out the salad and slice it.

  4. Serve the slices on lettuce leaves, optionally garnished with Neufchatel balls.

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 + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

  2. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  4. Sauce + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Tomato + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,469 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the main body, acidity and flavour of the salad.
Whipped cream
Adds fat and airiness, giving the frozen salad a softer, smoother texture.
Celery
Adds a mild, fresh vegetal flavour to the cooked puree.
Onion
Adds savoury aroma and depth to the cooked tomato base.

The step that matters

Folding in the whipped cream gently. Overworking whipped cream knocks out the air bubbles that give it volume, so the frozen salad turns dense and heavy instead of light and smooth.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, sauce, celery, cream):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, sauce, celery, cream. 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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