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Salad

Tomato Salad with Shrimps

A tomato salad topped with shrimp, lettuce, cheese, and a mustard‑cream dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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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 with Shrimps

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Ensure the tomatoes are sound, cut them in half, and scoop out a little of the center.

  2. Fill the tomatoes with finely chopped lettuce and arrange them on a bed of lettuce leaves in a flat dish.

Assemble and dress

  1. Top with freshly skinned shrimp or finely chopped prawns and sprinkle with grated cheese.

  2. In a bowl, combine the hard-boiled egg yolk, mustard, castor sugar, salt, pepper, salad oil, cream, and tarragon vinegar to make the dressing.

  3. Pour the dressing over the salad just before serving and garnish with watercress and red radish.

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

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

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

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

  5. Lettuce + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 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

Shrimp or prawns
Provide the main protein and mild sweet seafood flavor that anchors the salad.
Hard-boiled egg yolk
Emulsifies with the oil and cream to give the dressing a smooth, thick body.
Salad oil
Adds fat and richness to the dressing and carries its flavors.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the sharpness of the vinegar in the dressing.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the fat.
Grated cheese
Adds savory flavor and richness on top of the seafood.

The step that matters

Dress the salad just before serving. Acid and salt in the dressing draw moisture from the lettuce and tomatoes, so they wilt and release liquid if dressed too early. Adding the dressing last keeps the leaves crisp and the dressing from thinning.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lettuce, shrimp, cheese, egg, mustard, sugar, pepper):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, shrimp, cheese, egg, mustard, sugar, 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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