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Moulded Tomato Salad

A chilled tomato salad set in gelatin, served with celery salad and lettuce garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and 2,033 recipes mention both. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Moulded Tomato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the tomato gelatin

  1. Boil the tomatoes for 30 minutes or until soft.

  2. Soften the gelatin in cold water, then stir it into the tomatoes until dissolved.

  3. Pour the mixture into a ring mould and refrigerate until set.

Serve

  1. For serving, place celery salad in the center and surround it with lettuce.

  2. Alternatively, use small moulds or shape it like a cup and fill with salad on a bed of lettuce.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together3,377 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + lettucetop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together1,655 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

Tomatoes
Provide the main body and flavor; cooking softens them into a pulp that the gelatin sets.
Gelatine
Sets the tomato mixture into a firm shape that holds its form when unmoulded.

The step that matters

Dissolve the gelatin fully into the tomatoes. Gelatin must be hydrated and then dissolved in warm liquid to set evenly. Undissolved granules leave gritty specks and weak spots, so stir until no grains remain before refrigerating.

Flavor stand-ins for the lettuce

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

  1. Carrotbetter flavor fit
  2. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  3. Okraabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, celery. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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