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Tomatoes a LA Mayonnaise

A chilled tomato dish topped with mayonnaise and optionally marinated in vinegar, oil, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Tomatoes a LA Mayonnaise

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Chill the tomatoes in the refrigerator until very cold, but not frozen.

  2. Remove the skins from the tomatoes without using hot water.

  3. Slice the tomatoes while keeping their whole form.

Assemble and serve

  1. Arrange the tomato slices uniformly on a serving dish.

  2. Top each tomato slice with a spoonful of thick mayonnaise sauce.

  3. Garnish the dish with leaves, such as parsley.

  4. For marinated tomatoes, dip the slices in a mixture of 3 tablespoons vinegar, 1 tablespoon oil, pepper, and salt, then mix with the mayonnaise sauce after draining.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Tomato + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,469 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Form the main body of the dish, providing moisture and fresh, acidic flavor.
Mayonnaise sauce
Adds richness and fat, coating the tomato slices with a creamy texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity to the marinade, sharpening the flavor of the tomatoes.
Oil
Adds fat to the marinade, carrying flavor and softening the sharpness of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Chill the tomatoes until very cold, but not frozen. Cold, firm tomatoes slice cleanly and keep their shape. Freezing damages the cell walls, leaving them mushy and watery once thawed.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, vinegar, pepper, parsley. 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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