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Tomatoes, Dressed

A salad of sliced cherry tomatoes dressed with brown sugar, vinegar, salt, pepper, and optional mustard and sweet oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Tomatoes, Dressed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel the cherry tomatoes and slice them thinly.

  2. In a bowl, combine the brown sugar, vinegar, salt, and black pepper.

Layer and serve

  1. Layer the sliced tomatoes in a dish, sprinkling the sugar and vinegar mixture between layers.

  2. Continue layering until all tomatoes are used.

  3. Optionally, add mustard and sweet oil for extra flavor.

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. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  3. Cherry tomato + peppertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18 recipes

    Shared aroma: butanol (wine).

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

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

  5. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Cherry tomatoes
Provide the main body and fresh flavor of the dish.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps draw moisture out of the tomatoes.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and sharpens the flavor.

The step that matters

Layering the tomatoes with the sugar and vinegar mixture. Spreading the mixture evenly between every layer ensures each slice is seasoned. Sugar and vinegar draw liquid from the tomatoes over time, so the dish works best when the layers are allowed to rest and absorb the dressing.

Swap the mustard

The recipe marks mustard as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cherry tomato, sugar, vinegar, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Lettucefits about as well
  3. Mustardthe original
  4. Cucumberfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cherry tomato, sugar, 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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