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Salad

Lettuce and Tomato Salad

A salad of diced tomatoes, minced onion, lettuce, and a dressing of vinegar, oil or melted butter, salt, pepper, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 ↓

Lettuce and Tomato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Drain the tomatoes in a colander and cut them finely.

  2. Mix the tomatoes with the minced onion, salt, pepper, sugar, and vinegar.

  3. Serve the mixture well combined.

  4. Skin the required number of tomatoes and chill them on ice.

Prepare the lettuce

  1. Clean and wash the lettuce, then place it in a bowl lined with a napkin to absorb moisture.

  2. Put the lettuce in the ice box.

Assemble and serve

  1. Dress the lettuce with vinegar, oil (or melted butter), salt, and pepper before serving.

  2. Arrange the lettuce in a salad bowl, quarter or slice the tomatoes, and place them in the middle of the bowl.

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. Onion + lettucetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,562 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 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
Provide the main body and juice of the salad, with acidity from their natural tartness.
Onion
Adds sharp, aromatic flavour that cuts through the sweetness of the tomatoes.
Sugar
Balances the acidity of the vinegar and tomatoes with a touch of sweetness.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the tomatoes and seasons the dressing.
Lettuce
Forms the crisp base of the salad, with a texture that holds the dressed tomatoes.

The step that matters

Drain the tomatoes before mixing. Tomatoes release liquid when cut and salted. Draining them first keeps the dressing from thinning and the salad from going watery.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, pepper, sugar, vinegar, lettuce, butter):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, sugar, vinegar, lettuce, butter. 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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