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Salad

Tomato Salad

A salad of sliced tomatoes topped with a creamy egg yolk mixture seasoned with salt, cayenne, sugar, mustard, oil, and vinegar.

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

Why it works: Pepper and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tomato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Rub the yolks of the hard-boiled eggs into a smooth paste, adding the salt, cayenne pepper, sugar, mustard, and salad oil gradually.

  2. Beat a raw egg until frothy and stir it into the mixture, then add the vinegar.

Assemble and serve

  1. Peel and slice the tomatoes, and arrange them on a dish.

  2. Pour the egg mixture over the tomatoes and serve.

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. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  4. Mustard + tomatotop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,482 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Hard-boiled eggs
Their yolks form a smooth, rich base that thickens the dressing.
Salad oil
Adds fat that emulsifies with the yolks for a creamy texture.
Prepared mustard
Its emulsifiers help hold the oil and vinegar together in the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness of the yolks.
Ripe tomatoes
Provide the fresh, juicy base that the dressing is poured over.

The step that matters

Adding the oil gradually. Oil must be worked into the yolk paste slowly so it emulsifies. Adding it all at once can split the dressing into separate layers of oil and egg.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, pepper, sugar, mustard, 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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