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Salad

Tomatoes a LA Lucullus

Tomatoes à la Lucullus is a salad of tomatoes filled with mayonnaise sauce and pickled walnuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and 17,913 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

The recipe

6 tomatoes

Ingredients

Contains: egg, tree nuts (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

  1. Scoop out the centers of the tomatoes.

  2. Season the insides with salt and pepper.

  3. Fill each tomato with a little mayonnaise sauce.

  4. Add a pickled walnut to each tomato.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Tomato + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together17,913 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + saucetop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together5,468 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Tomato + walnuttop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together497 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Pepper + walnuttop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,035 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Pepper + saucetop 17% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together15,299 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Pepper and sauce share little aroma chemistry, yet 15,299 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Serve as the hollow case that holds the filling, adding fresh acidity and juice.
Mayonnaise sauce
Adds richness and creamy fat that contrasts with the acidic tomato.
Pickled walnuts
Add a sharp, tangy flavour that cuts through the richness of the mayonnaise.

Flavor stand-ins for the walnut

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

  1. Beansbetter flavor fit
  2. Black-eyed peabetter flavor fit
  3. Chickpeabetter flavor fit
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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