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Salad

Boiled Ham and Tomato Salad

A salad of sliced boiled ham, tomato wedges, lettuce, dressed with olive oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and olive are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,539 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Boiled Ham and Tomato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the cooked ham into thin pieces.

  2. Cut the tomatoes into wedges.

Assemble and dress

  1. Arrange lettuce leaves on a plate.

  2. Place ham slices and tomato wedges on top of the lettuce.

  3. Drizzle with olive oil and vinegar.

  4. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

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 + olivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,539 recipes

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

  2. Lettuce + olivetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,580 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Pepper + lettucetop 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

Cooked ham
Provides savoury, meaty flavour and substance as the salad's protein.
Tomatoes
Add juiciness and acidity that brighten the salad.
Olive oil
Adds fat and a smooth mouthfeel that carries flavour across the leaves.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the fat and sweetness of the tomatoes.

Swap the lettuce

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Cucumberfits about as well
  4. Lettucethe original

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