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Salad

Stuffed Tomato Salad

A salad of tomatoes filled with celery, nuts, and French dressing, served on lettuce with mayonnaise.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,033 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Stuffed Tomato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Peel the tomatoes.

  2. Chill the tomatoes.

  3. Remove the seeds and pulp from the tomatoes.

  4. Add 2 teaspoons of French dressing to each tomato.

Fill and serve

  1. Fill each tomato with equal parts of finely chopped celery and nuts.

  2. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

  3. Serve the stuffed tomatoes on lettuce leaves with 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.

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. Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

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

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

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

  4. Nuts + lettucetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together174 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Celery + nutstop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together169 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Form the hollow shell that holds the filling and provide the salad's juicy body.
Celery
Adds crisp texture that contrasts with the soft tomato.
Nuts
Add crunch and a toasty, rich flavor to the filling.
French dressing
Seasons the tomatoes from inside and adds acidity and sweetness.

The step that matters

Remove the seeds and pulp from the tomatoes. Cutting the shell too thin can tear it, while leaving pulp makes the salad watery. Clearing out the centre creates room for the filling and a sturdy cup that holds its shape.

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Chickpeafits better
  3. Lentilsfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, celery, lettuce. 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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