Name: Tomato Jelly Molded in Ring
Ingredients: 3 tablespoons melted chicken jelly; 1 teaspoon vinegar; 2 tablespoons oil; 1 teaspoon salt; ½ teaspoon pepper; curled celery; shredded lettuce

Why it works: Celery and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and 2,033 recipes mention both. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Tomato Jelly Molded in Ring

Ingredients

Directions

Mix melted chicken jelly, vinegar, oil, salt, and pepper in a bowl.
Add curled celery and nuts, mixing well.
Pour the mixture into a mold and cover with jelly.
Refrigerate until set, then turn onto a flat dish.
Surround with a wreath of shredded lettuce.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together2,033 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together16,012 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Pepper + lettucetop 9% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together4,037 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together27,814 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Vinegar + lettucetop 14% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together2,370 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the lettuce

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

Capsicumbetter flavor fit
Mustardbetter flavor fit
Tomatobetter flavor fit
Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, vinegar, pepper, celery. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).