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Salad

Tomato Salad

A chilled tomato salad made with gelatin, orange juice, celery, and served on lettuce with mayonnaise.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Tomato Salad

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 ↓

Tomato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gelatin base

  1. Cook the tomatoes with salt and pepper for 20 minutes.

  2. Strain the mixture.

  3. Soak the gelatin in cold water, then add it to the strained mixture.

  4. Stir in the orange juice and diced celery.

Set and serve

  1. Pour into molds and refrigerate until set.

  2. Serve on lettuce leaves with mayonnaise.

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. 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. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + lettucetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,655 recipes

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

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

Gelatin
Sets the strained tomato liquid into a firm, sliceable salad that holds its shape.
Tomatoes
Provide the main body, flavor and acidity of the salad base.
Celery
Adds crisp texture that contrasts with the soft, set gelatin.
Orange juice
Adds sweetness and acidity that brightens the tomato flavor.

The step that matters

Soak the gelatin in cold water before adding it. Gelatin must hydrate in cold water so it dissolves evenly into the warm mixture; added dry or in clumps, it sets unevenly and leaves a grainy texture.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Limefits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, gelatin, 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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