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Salad

Tomato Salad

A salad of sliced tomatoes dressed with oil, vinegar, mustard, basil, pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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

  1. Slice the tomatoes and remove all the seeds.

  2. Rub a dish with the garlic.

  3. Mix the oil and vinegar in a ratio of 2:1.

Assemble and serve

  1. Place the tomatoes in the mixture.

  2. Sprinkle with pepper, salt, and minced basil.

  3. Let the salad sit 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. Tomato + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Basil + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,805 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  5. Basil + clovetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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 juice that mingle with the dressing.
Oil
Adds richness and carries flavor through the sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the tomatoes and balances the oil.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavor and helps the oil and vinegar hold together.
Garlic clove
Adds aroma to the serving dish and the salad.

The step that matters

Let the salad sit in the sauce for 2 hours before serving.. Resting lets the acid and salt season the tomatoes and soften them slightly. Sitting too long, however, draws out more juice, which thins the sauce and makes the salad watery.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Oreganofits better
  4. Clovethe original

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