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Tomatoes Dressed Individually

A salad of tomato halves dressed with vinegar, oil, pepper and served on lettuce leaves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Tomatoes Dressed Individually

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Peel the tomatoes and cut them in half.

  2. Remove the pulp and seeds without breaking the outer skin.

Make and serve the salad

  1. Mix the pulp and seeds with vinegar, salad oil, and pepper to make a dressing.

  2. Return the mixture to the tomato halves.

  3. Place each half on a fresh lettuce leaf on individual dishes and serve.

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. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  5. Vinegar + lettucetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,370 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Ripe tomatoes
Form the salad base, with their pulp and seeds mixed into the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the tomato pulp and dressing.
Salad oil
Adds fat that carries flavor and gives the dressing a smooth, rich mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Removing the pulp and seeds without breaking the outer skin. The tomato halves need intact skins to hold the dressing. A torn skin lets the filling leak out and makes the halves hard to serve neatly.

Swap the lettuce

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

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

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