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Salad

Tomato Jelly Salad

A salad of tomato jelly served on lettuce leaves with mayonnaise dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 1,483 recipes mention both. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Tomato Jelly Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. Simmer tomatoes, bay leaf, parsley, cloves, onion, and salt for 20-30 minutes.

  2. Strain the mixture and add soaked gelatin while still warm.

  3. Pour into small cups and chill.

Serve

  1. Serve on lettuce leaves 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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Parsley + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,483 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Parsley + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Clove + lettucetop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together486 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Onion + lettucetop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,562 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 tart flavor of the jelly base.
Gelatin
Sets the strained tomato liquid into a firm, sliceable jelly when chilled.

The step that matters

Adding the gelatin while the mixture is still warm. Gelatin must be fully dissolved in warm liquid before setting. Adding it to a cooled or lumpy mixture can leave it unevenly set, so it should be soaked in cold water first and then stirred in while the strained liquid is warm.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

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

  1. Carrotbetter flavor fit
  2. Beetrootbetter flavor fit
  3. Cucumberbetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

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