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Tomato Jelly Salad

A chilled tomato salad set in gelatin, served on lettuce with mayonnaise garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and lettuce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,655 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tomato Jelly Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. Soak the gelatin in ½ cup cold water for 15 minutes until soft.

  2. Heat the tomatoes and strain them through a fine sieve.

  3. Add salt and sugar to the strained tomatoes.

  4. Stir in the softened gelatin.

  5. Mold the mixture or pour it into a shallow dish.

  6. Chill until firm.

Serve

  1. Cut the chilled mixture into fancy shapes.

  2. Serve on crisp lettuce.

  3. Garnish each serving with mayonnaise 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 + lettucetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,655 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Gelatin + lettucetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together128 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Sugar + lettucetop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,486 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. 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 main flavour and liquid base of the jelly.
Granulated gelatin
Sets the tomato liquid into a firm, sliceable jelly as it cools.

The step that matters

Soak the gelatin before adding it. Gelatin must first absorb cold water and soften so it dissolves evenly into the warm tomato liquid. Added dry or lumpy, it leaves uneven, gritty patches and a weak set.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Beetrootfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Cucumberfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, gelatin, lettuce. 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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