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Tomato Salad

A salad of baked tomato slices dressed with oil, vinegar, mustard, basil, pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Tomato Salad

Why it works: Tomato and basil are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,979 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Tomato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Bake the tomatoes until just tender.

  2. Cut the tomatoes into slices.

  3. Remove all the seeds.

Assemble and marinate

  1. Rub a dish with garlic and place the tomato slices in it.

  2. Mix the oil and vinegar in a 2:1 ratio and pour over the tomatoes.

  3. Sprinkle with pepper and coarse sea salt to taste, and add finely minced basil leaves.

  4. Let the salad marinate in the sauce for 2 hours before serving.

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. Tomato + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Basil + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,294 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 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

Tomatoes
Provide the main body and juicy texture of the salad once baked and sliced.
Oil
Adds fat and carries flavour through the dressing, coating the tomato slices.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the oil.
Mustard
Helps emulsify the oil and vinegar so the dressing holds together.
Fresh basil leaves
Contribute aroma and a fresh herbal flavour to the salad.

The step that matters

Let the salad marinate for 2 hours. The tomatoes need time in the acidic dressing so the flavours can soak into the slices. Serving too early leaves the salad tasting flat and the dressing sitting on top.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Eggplantfits better
  3. Cucumberfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, vinegar, basil, pepper. 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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