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Dressed Tomatoes

A tomato salad dressed with a sauce of egg yolks, butter, vinegar, mustard, sugar, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Dressed Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and slice the tomatoes.

Make the dressing

  1. In a saucepan, combine egg yolks, butter, salt, sugar, and vinegar.

  2. Boil the mixture until it thickens, stirring constantly.

  3. Let the dressing cool.

  4. Add the mixed mustard.

Serve

  1. Serve the dressing with the sliced tomatoes or pour it over whole peeled tomatoes after removing the core.

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. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Tomato + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,482 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Tomato + vinegartop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,063 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the dressing as they set during cooking, giving it a creamy body.
Butter
Adds richness and smoothness, making the dressing silky and mellow.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that sharpens the dressing and balances the sweetness.
Sugar
Softens the sharpness of the vinegar and rounds out the flavor.
Tomatoes
Serve as the fresh, juicy base that the tangy dressing is spooned over.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture until it thickens, stirring constantly. Egg yolks can scramble if they overheat. Constant stirring spreads the heat evenly, so the mixture thickens smoothly instead of curdling.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter, sugar, coffee, vinegar, mustard):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Cucumberfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, sugar, coffee, vinegar, mustard. 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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