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Tomato Jelly Salad

Tomato jelly served on lettuce leaves with mayonnaise.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,356 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tomato Jelly Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. Boil the tomatoes for 20 minutes.

  2. Add the onion, sugar, Worcestershire sauce, pepper, salt, and mustard.

  3. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve or cloth.

  4. Soak the gelatin in a little cold water, then add it to the strained mixture.

  5. Strain again and pour into molds.

Serve

  1. Serve on lettuce leaves 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. Mustard + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

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

  2. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Sauce + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together104 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 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 flavour of the jelly.
Gelatin
Sets the strained tomato liquid into a firm, sliceable jelly.
Sugar
Balances the acidity of the tomatoes with sweetness.

The step that matters

Soak the gelatin in cold water before adding it. Gelatin must hydrate in cold water first so it dissolves evenly into the warm mixture. Added dry or lumpy, it can leave clumps and set unevenly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, sugar, sauce, pepper, mustard, gelatin, lettuce):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Beetrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, sugar, sauce, pepper, mustard, 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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