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Salad

Frozen Cheese Salad

A chilled salad of cottage cheese, tomatoes, green pepper, seasoned with Worcestershire sauce, salt, cayenne pepper, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Frozen Cheese Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the tomatoes into pieces and drain them.

  2. Chop the green pepper.

Make the salad

  1. In a bowl, mix the cottage cheese with the cream, Worcestershire sauce, salt, and cayenne pepper.

  2. Add the tomatoes and green pepper to the mixture.

  3. Pack the mixture into a mold, then turn it out and slice to serve.

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. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  2. Sauce + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Cottage cheese + tomatotop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together177 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  4. Sauce + tomatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,469 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Cottage cheese + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together146 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Cottage cheese
Forms the body of the salad, giving it a soft, creamy structure.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, softening the cottage cheese into a smoother mixture.
Tomatoes
Add moisture and acidity, brightening the flavor of the salad.
Green pepper
Adds crisp texture and a fresh, slightly bitter bite.

The step that matters

Drain the tomatoes. Tomatoes release a lot of liquid when cut. If they are not drained well, the extra water thins the cream and cottage cheese mixture and can keep the salad from holding its shape when packed into a mold.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cottage cheese, sauce, cream, pepper):

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Tomatothe original
  4. Horseradishfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cottage cheese, sauce, cream, 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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