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Tomato Jelly Salad

A chilled tomato gelatin salad made with tomatoes, cloves, bay leaf, salt, paprika, and gelatin.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and clove are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,474 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Tomato Jelly Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. Cook the tomatoes, cloves, bay leaf, salt, and paprika in a saucepan for 15 minutes.

  2. Strain the mixture and add the dissolved gelatin.

Set and serve

  1. Pour into individual molds and chill until set.

  2. Once cold, remove from molds and garnish with lettuce and salad dressing.

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 + clovetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Clove + gelatintop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together137 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-pinene (pine, resin).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the body and tangy flavor of the jelly.
Gelatin
Sets the strained tomato liquid into a firm jelly as it chills.
Paprika
Adds color and a mild, warm flavor to the tomato base.

The step that matters

Adding the dissolved gelatin. Gelatin sets only when it is fully dissolved and evenly mixed into the liquid. If it is lumpy or unevenly distributed, the jelly may set weakly or in patches, so stir it through thoroughly before pouring into the molds.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, 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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