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Salad

Raw Tomatoes

A salad of sliced tomatoes dressed with a vinaigrette of sugar, pepper, salt, mustard, oil, vinegar, and celery extract.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Raw Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dressing

  1. Pare and slice the tomatoes and place them in a salad dish.

  2. In a bowl, mix the sugar, pepper, coarse sea salt, and French mustard until smooth.

  3. Gradually beat in the salad oil and then the vinegar, mixing well.

  4. Add the celery extract and stir to combine.

Assemble and chill

  1. Pour the dressing over the tomatoes and chill in the refrigerator until ready to 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. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 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

Tomatoes
Provide the main body and fresh, juicy flavor of the salad.
Salad oil
Adds fat and smooth richness that softens the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the sugar.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that rounds out the acidity of the vinegar and mustard.

The step that matters

Beating in the oil gradually. Adding oil slowly while beating breaks it into tiny droplets held in the vinegar and mustard, creating a smooth, stable dressing. Pouring it in all at once lets it separate into a greasy layer.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, pepper, mustard, vinegar, celery. 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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