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Salad

Raw Tomatoes

A salad of sliced ripe tomatoes dressed with vinegar, mustard, oil, and optional wine and cream sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cider and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,431 recipes. Both carry 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol, which smells smoky, clove. The science ↓

Raw Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Select large, fully ripe tomatoes and remove the skins without scalding.

  2. Slice the tomatoes and place them in a serving dish.

Dress the salad

  1. In a bowl, mix together the cider vinegar, mixed mustard, salad oil, pepper, and coarse sea salt.

  2. Pour the dressing over the sliced tomatoes.

  3. For an alternative dressing, combine the wine, white sugar, cream, and grated nutmeg in a separate bowl.

  4. Pour this sauce over the tomatoes.

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. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  2. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mustard + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,019 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Large ripe tomatoes
Provide the main body and juicy flesh of the salad.
Cider vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the tomatoes and balances the dressing.
Salad oil
Adds fat that carries flavour and gives the dressing a smoother mouthfeel.
White sugar
Adds sweetness that softens the acidity of the vinegar and wine.
Cream
Adds richness and fat that mellows the sharpness of the sauce.

The step that matters

Remove the tomato skins without scalding. Skins can be tough and bitter, and the record says not to scald the tomatoes. Peeling by hand keeps the flesh firm and fresh-tasting, so the dressing soaks in cleanly rather than making the fruit soft.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cider, vinegar, mustard, pepper, sugar, cream, nutmeg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cider, vinegar, mustard, pepper, sugar, cream, nutmeg. 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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