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Tomato Baskets

Tomato baskets are tomato halves filled with asparagus and topped with pepper rings, served cold with dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and asparagus match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 313 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tomato Baskets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the green pepper into ½ inch rings.

  2. Scald the tomatoes, peel them, chill, and cut in half crosswise.

Assemble and serve

  1. Place the tomato halves on lettuce leaves with the cut side up.

  2. Lay 4 or 5 asparagus tips side by side in the center of each tomato half.

  3. Cut the pepper rings at one end and lay them across the top of the asparagus to form a handle.

  4. Serve ice cold with French dressing or Gargoyle sauce.

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. Lettuce + asparagustop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together313 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + lettucetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,655 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Tomato + asparagustop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together313 recipes

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

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

Tomatoes
Form the hollow basket base and provide juicy, acidic flavor.
Asparagus tips
Add tender texture and a green, vegetal flavor at the center of each basket.
Green pepper
Provides crisp texture and fresh, slightly bitter flavor for the handle.

The step that matters

Scald and peel the tomatoes. Brief scalding loosens the skin so it peels cleanly without tearing the flesh. Chilling afterward firms the tomato so the halves hold their shape when assembled.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, lettuce, asparagus. 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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