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Asparagus in Tomato Border

A tomato jelly molded around chilled asparagus tips, topped with mayonnaise.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and asparagus work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 313 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Asparagus in Tomato Border

Ingredients

Directions

Make the aspic

  1. Boil and strain canned tomatoes to make tomato jelly.

  2. Add enough dissolved gelatin to the strained tomatoes to hold it together.

  3. Pour mixture into border or ring mold and refrigerate until set.

Serve

  1. Turn mold onto a large flat plate and fill center with chilled asparagus tips.

  2. Top with mayonnaise just before serving.

  3. Garnish as desired.

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. Tomato + asparagustop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together313 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + gelatintop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-nonanal (fatty, waxy).

  3. Gelatin + asparagustop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatin
Sets the strained tomato liquid into a firm, sliceable jelly.
Canned tomatoes
Provide the tomato base and flavor for the jelly once strained.
Mayonnaise
Adds richness and a creamy contrast to the tart tomato jelly.

The step that matters

Adding the gelatin. Too little gelatin leaves the tomato jelly too soft to hold its shape when unmolded, while too much makes it rubbery. Dissolve it fully and add it to the strained tomatoes before they cool and begin to set.

Swap the asparagus

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Cucumberfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Asparagusthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, gelatin. 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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