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Tomato Jelly Salad

A chilled tomato salad made with gelatin, vegetables, and tarragon vinegar, served with mayonnaise.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and tarragon 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 the gelatin in cold water for 5 minutes.

Make the jelly

  1. In a pot, cook the tomatoes with onion, celery, bay leaf, cloves, salt, parsley, and paprika for 10 minutes.

  2. Strain the mixture and add tarragon vinegar and soaked gelatin.

  3. Pour into molds and refrigerate until set.

Serve

  1. Serve with mayonnaise.

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 + tarragontop 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. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

  5. Clove + tarragontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together548 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatin
Sets the tomato liquid into a firm, sliceable jelly.
Tomatoes
Provide the main body, acidity and flavor of the jelly.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds sharpness that balances the sweetness of the tomatoes.
Onion
Adds savory aroma and depth to the cooked tomato base.

The step that matters

Adding the soaked gelatin to the strained mixture. Gelatin must be fully dissolved into the warm liquid before molding. If the mixture is too cold or the gelatin is not evenly distributed, it can set unevenly or form lumps, leaving a weak or grainy jelly.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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