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Tomato Salad

A tomato salad made with boiled tomatoes, cloves, onion, celery, vinegar, cayenne pepper, gelatin, and stuffed olives, served on lettuce with dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Tomato Salad

Why it works: Tomato and olive are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,539 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Tomato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the tomato base

  1. Boil the tomatoes, cloves, onion, celery, and salt for 15 minutes.

  2. Strain the mixture and add vinegar and cayenne pepper to the strained pulp.

  3. When boiling, add gelatin and stir until dissolved.

Set and serve

  1. Place 2 stuffed olives in each cup and pour the gelatin over them.

  2. Set the cups on ice or in a cold place to set.

  3. When ready to serve, invert each mold on a lettuce leaf and pour salad dressing over each.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + olivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,539 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

  3. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  5. Clove + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

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 flavor of the tomato pulp that forms the salad.
Gelatin
Sets the strained tomato liquid into a firm mold that holds its shape.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the tomato mixture.
Stuffed olives
Add salty, briny bites inside each set mold.

The step that matters

Dissolving the gelatin. Gelatin must be fully dissolved in the hot strained liquid before pouring; undissolved granules leave grainy spots and weak patches, so the mold may not set evenly.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, clove, celery, vinegar, pepper, gelatin, olive. 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.

More tomato salad recipes

Stuffed 27Frozen 12Cucumber 6with Mayonnaise 6Dressing 5Shrimp 4 See all 165 →

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