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Tomato Aspic

A chilled tomato gelatin made with tomatoes, cloves, celery, gelatin, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,467 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Tomato Aspic

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Stew the tomatoes, cloves, salt, and celery for 20 minutes.

  2. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve.

  3. Soak the gelatin in cold water and stir until dissolved.

  4. Add the dissolved gelatin and lemon juice to the hot tomato mixture.

  5. Pour into jelly glasses until half full and set aside to harden.

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. Celery + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Clove + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

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

  4. Clove + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Tomato + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the main flavor and liquid base of the aspic.
Gelatin
Sets the liquid into a firm, wobbly jelly as it cools.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the tomato flavor.

The step that matters

Dissolving the gelatin fully before adding it to the hot tomato mixture. Gelatin must be completely dissolved, or it can leave grainy lumps and set unevenly. Stirring it into the hot mixture helps it disperse evenly so the aspic sets smoothly throughout.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, celery, gelatin, lemon. 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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