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Tomato Salad

A tomato salad topped with a cooked egg and sugar-flour sauce seasoned with vinegar, mustard, and salt.

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

Why it works: Lettuce and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,356 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tomato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chill the tomatoes.

  2. Prepare salad plates with a nest of lettuce leaves.

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg thoroughly.

  2. Add the sugar and flour, and mix well.

  3. Gradually beat in the vinegar mixed with mustard and add water.

  4. Cook the mixture until it thickens.

  5. Chill the mixture.

Serve

  1. Serve the mixture over the tomatoes.

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. Lettuce + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Lettuce + flourtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,236 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Tomato + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,482 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

Eggs
Thickens the dressing as it cooks and gives it a rich body.
Flour
Thickens the dressing with starch as it cooks, giving it a smooth consistency.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that gives the dressing its tangy flavour.
Tomatoes
Supply the fresh, juicy base that the warm dressing is served over.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture until it thickens. The egg and flour must be heated gently while stirring; too little heat leaves the dressing thin, while overheating can scramble the egg and leave lumps.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lettuce, egg, sugar, flour, vinegar, mustard):

  1. Beetrootfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, egg, sugar, flour, vinegar, mustard. 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 with egg recipes

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