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Salad

Tomato Salad with Olives

A salad of sliced tomatoes and cucumber with olives, hard‑boiled eggs, mayonnaise, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 with Olives

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Scald and peel the tomatoes.

  2. Slice the tomatoes and cucumber thinly.

  3. Mix the tomatoes and cucumber in a salad bowl.

Dress and serve

  1. Garnish with stuffed olives and slices of hard-boiled egg.

  2. Drizzle with mayonnaise and sprinkle with lemon juice.

  3. Serve immediately.

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

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

  2. Tomato + cucumbertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,405 recipes

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

  3. Cucumber + olivetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  4. Olive + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,922 recipes

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

  5. Cucumber + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the main body and juicy moisture of the salad.
Cucumber
Adds crisp texture and cool moisture that contrasts with the tomatoes.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add rich, firm texture and savory substance as a garnish.
Mayonnaise
Adds fat and creaminess that coats the vegetables and gives richness.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the mayonnaise.

The step that matters

Scald and peel the tomatoes. Scalding loosens the skins so they slip off cleanly. Leaving skins on can make the salad tough and uneven to eat, and peeling removes the bitter, chewy outer layer.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, cucumber, olive, egg):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Cherryfits better
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Limefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, cucumber, olive, egg. 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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