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Cold Meat with Tomato Jelly

A chilled meat dish set in a tomato and gelatin sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,377 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cold Meat with Tomato Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the tomato jelly

  1. In an earthen saucepan, cook the chopped onion in butter until browned.

  2. Add the tomatoes and celery to the pan.

  3. Stir in the wine vinegar, salt, and paprika.

  4. Dissolve the gelatin in ½ cup of cold water and pour it into the pan. Mix everything well until blended.

  5. Pour the mixture into a mold with an open center and let it cool.

Assemble

  1. Once cold, remove from the mold and fill the center with chopped cold meat.

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

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

  2. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,759 recipes

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

  5. Wine + vinegartop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,493 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatin
Sets the tomato mixture into a firm jelly that holds its shape when cold.
Tomatoes
Provide the main body, acidity and flavor of the jelly.
Butter
Fat that carries the onion flavor and helps it brown.
Onion
Browned in butter to build a savory base flavor.
Wine vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the tomato flavor.
Chopped cold meat
Forms the filling in the center of the cold jelly.

The step that matters

Dissolve the gelatin in cold water before adding it to the pan. Gelatin must be fully dissolved so it sets evenly; clumps left undissolved create weak or grainy spots in the jelly. Mixing well until blended helps it distribute through the hot tomato mixture before cooling.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, butter, tomato, wine, vinegar, gelatin, meat):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, butter, tomato, wine, vinegar, gelatin, meat. 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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