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Salad

Tomato Jelly Salad

A tomato salad thickened with gelatin and seasoned with celery, bay leaf, cloves, salt, parsley, paprika, and tarragon vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By North End Club (Chicago, Ill.) · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Tarragon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,563 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Tomato Jelly Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak three-quarters of a box of gelatin in ½ cup cold water.

Make the tomato mixture

  1. Cook a can of tomatoes with ½ onion, 1 stalk celery, 1 bay leaf, 2 cloves, 1 teaspoon salt, a little parsley, and a dash of paprika.

  2. Cook for 10 minutes, then strain and add 2 tablespoons tarragon vinegar and the gelatin.

Set and serve

  1. Turn the mixture into molds.

  2. Serve with mayonnaise.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

21Calories
1 gProtein
0 gFat
4 gCarbs

Counts 7 of 8 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 7 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Clove1 tsp ground (2g)7
Celery1 stalk (40g)6
Vinegar1 tbsp (15ml) distilled3
Tarragon1 tsp dried (0.5g)2
Bay Leaf1 leaf (0.6g)2
Parsley1 tbsp chopped fresh (3.8g)1
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By North End Club (Chicago, Ill.). 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. See the original page.

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. Tarragon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  3. Celery + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together456 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Tarragon + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together548 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Celery + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Sets the tomato liquid into a firm, sliceable jelly once chilled.
Tomatoes (in the method)
Provide the main body, colour and tart tomato flavour of the jelly.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour of the tomato mixture.

The step that matters

Adding the gelatin to the strained mixture. Gelatin must be fully dissolved in the hot strained liquid before it goes into the molds; undissolved granules leave gritty spots and uneven setting.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Dillfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, tarragon, vinegar, parsley. 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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