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Tomato Aspic Salad

A chilled tomato aspic served as a salad, garnished with lettuce and mayonnaise dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,483 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Tomato Aspic Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the tomato base

  1. Drain the liquid from the can of tomatoes and place it in a saucepan.

  2. Add the bay leaf, onion juice, parsley, salt, and white pepper; bring to a boil.

  3. Reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes.

Set the aspic

  1. Soak the gelatin in cold water for 5 minutes, then stir it into the tomato mixture.

  2. Once the gelatin is dissolved, remove from heat and strain through a jelly bag.

  3. Pour the mixture into a mold and refrigerate until set.

Serve

  1. Once firm, turn out onto a platter and garnish with lettuce leaves.

  2. Serve with mayonnaise dressing.

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. Parsley + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,483 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Onion + lettucetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,562 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatin
Sets the strained tomato liquid into a firm, sliceable aspic.
Tomatoes
Provide the main flavor and liquid base of the aspic.

The step that matters

Dissolving the gelatin before setting. Gelatin must fully dissolve into the hot tomato mixture and the mixture must be removed from heat first; if it boils or is left under-dissolved, the gelatin will not set evenly and the aspic can turn out weak or grainy.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, onion, parsley, gelatin, lettuce):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, onion, parsley, gelatin, lettuce. 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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