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Dessert

Tomato Shape

A chilled tomato gelatin dessert made with tomato puree, sugar, salt, pepper, and gelatin.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tomato Shape

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomato base

  1. Pass the tomatoes through a sieve.

  2. Warm the tomato puree in a pan.

  3. Season with salt, pepper, and add the sugar.

Set the gelatin

  1. Melt the gelatine in a little warm water.

  2. Mix the melted gelatine with the warm tomato puree.

  3. Pour the mixture into a basin and stir occasionally until nearly cold.

  4. Transfer to a mould and refrigerate until set.

Serve

  1. Serve with whipped cream in the center or around it.

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 + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + peppertop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,401 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Tomato + sugartop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,667 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Sugar and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,401 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 the puree that forms the body of the dish.
Gelatine
Sets the tomato puree into a firm, sliceable gel as it cools.
Sugar
Balances the acidity of the tomatoes with a touch of sweetness.

The step that matters

Stir the mixture until nearly cold before moulding. Gelatine begins to set as it cools. If the mixture is poured into the mould while still hot, the gel may set unevenly or weakly, and stirring while it cools keeps the gelatine evenly dispersed.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, pepper. 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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