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Salad

Tomato Salad

A salad of sliced tomatoes and Spanish onion dressed with an egg yolk, oil, vinegar, spices, and garnished with watercress.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Tomato Salad

Why it works: Tarragon and watercress match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 108 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Tomato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the tomatoes into rings and the Spanish onion into fine rings.

  2. Arrange them in alternate rows on a serving plate.

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, mix the yolk of the egg with the oil.

  2. Add the vinegar, tarragon vinegar, spiced vinegar, cayenne, and pepper; mix well.

Assemble and serve

  1. Drizzle the dressing over the salad and garnish with watercress.

  2. Serve immediately.

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. Tarragon + watercresstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together108 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Tarragon + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Tomato + tarragontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together391 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  5. Vinegar + tarragontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 fresh, slightly acidic flavour of the salad.
Spanish onion
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that contrasts with the sweet tomatoes.
Oil
Carries fat-soluble flavours and gives the dressing a smooth, rich texture.
Yolk of 1 raw egg
Emulsifies the oil and vinegar, helping the dressing stay thick and cling to the salad.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness of the oil.

The step that matters

Mixing the egg yolk with the oil. The yolk is the emulsifier that holds oil and vinegar together. Adding the vinegar too early or mixing too little can cause the dressing to separate instead of becoming smooth and cohesive.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, vinegar, tarragon, pepper, egg, watercress):

  1. Lettucefits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, vinegar, tarragon, pepper, egg, watercress. 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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