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Salad

Turkey and Tomato Salad

A salad of diced tomatoes filled with marinated turkey, served on lettuce with French and mayonnaise dressings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and lettuce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,655 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Turkey and Tomato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Cut off the tops of the tomatoes and scoop out the centers.

  2. Turn the tomatoes upside down for 30 minutes to drain.

Fill and serve

  1. Dice enough turkey meat to fill the tomatoes and marinate it with French dressing.

  2. Fill the tomatoes with the marinated turkey.

  3. Serve on lettuce leaves and drizzle mayonnaise dressing over the top.

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

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

  2. Turkey + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together540 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Tomato + turkeytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together90 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Tomato + meattop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,438 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Meat + lettucetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together579 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Firm tomatoes
Form the hollow cups that hold the filling and give the salad its structure.
Cooked turkey meat
Provides the protein base of the filling, diced to fit the tomatoes.
French dressing
Marinates the turkey, adding moisture and a tangy, acidic flavour.
Mayonnaise dressing
Adds richness and fat, moistening the salad and adding creamy flavour on top.

The step that matters

Draining the tomatoes. Tomatoes hold a lot of watery juice. Draining them upside down removes some of it, so the filling stays firm and the dressing does not run into a soggy base.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, turkey, meat):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, turkey, meat. 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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