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Tomato and Cream Cheese Salad

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Tomato and lettuce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,655 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tomato and Cream Cheese Salad

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Wash, peel, and slice the tomatoes into ½ inch thick slices.

  2. Drain the slices well and wipe off each slice.

  3. Spread a thick layer of cream cheese mixed with chopped green peppers on top of each slice.

  4. Place a round of pepper in the middle of each slice.

  5. Serve on a bed of crisp lettuce with French dressing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Cream cheese + lettucetop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together213 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Tomato + cream cheesetop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together446 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

Swap the lettuce

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Cucumberfits better
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, cream cheese, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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