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Salad

Tomato Salad

A salad of tomatoes stuffed with a ham and onion mixture, chilled and served with mayonnaise.

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

Why it works: Tomato and olive are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,539 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Tomato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Remove the skin from the tomatoes and cut out the center of each.

Fill and serve

  1. Fill the hole with a mixture of ground ham, chopped onion, salt, pepper, celery seed, bread crumbs, and olive oil.

  2. Chill the filled tomatoes on ice.

  3. Serve with a rich mayonnaise.

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. Tomato + olivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,539 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

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

  3. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Ripe tomatoes
Form the edible cups that hold the filling and provide juicy, acidic flavor.
Cold ham
Supplies savory, meaty flavor and substance to the filling.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help bind the ham filling so it holds its shape.
Olive oil
Adds fat that carries flavor and gives the filling a smoother texture.

The step that matters

Chill the filled tomatoes on ice. Cold firms the filling and slows the release of juice from the tomatoes, so the cups stay intact and the filling does not turn watery.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, ham, pepper, celery, bread, olive):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, ham, pepper, celery, bread, olive. 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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