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Salad

Salad of Tomatoes Stuffed with Celery

A salad of tomatoes hollowed and filled with a celery and mayonnaise mixture, served on lettuce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Salad of Tomatoes Stuffed with Celery

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Blanch the tomatoes.

  2. Cut a slice from the stem end of each tomato.

  3. Remove the core and some seeds.

  4. Chill the tomatoes on ice until cold.

Fill and serve

  1. Mix the shredded celery with mayonnaise dressing.

  2. Stuff the tomatoes with the celery mixture, allowing it to overflow.

  3. Serve each tomato on a leaf or two of crisp lettuce and pour some mayonnaise around them.

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).

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

What each ingredient does

Firm tomatoes
Serve as the hollow shell that holds the filling, with their flesh giving body to the dish.
Celery
Adds crisp texture and a fresh, mild crunch to the filling.
Mayonnaise dressing
Binds the shredded celery and adds richness and moisture to the filling.
Crisp lettuce
Provides a cool, crisp base that contrasts with the chilled tomato and dressing.

The step that matters

Chill the tomatoes on ice until cold. Cold tomatoes stay firm and hold their shape under the filling, and the cold also keeps the mayonnaise dressing from warming and loosening. Skipping or shortening this chill can leave the shells soft and the filling runny.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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