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Tomato Aspic

A chilled tomato gelatin made with chicken broth, tomatoes, vinegar, lemon juice, gelatin, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Tarragon and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,137 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Tomato Aspic

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the chicken broth and tomatoes together for 15 minutes.

  2. Strain the mixture to remove solids.

  3. Clear the liquid in the same way as aspic jelly.

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. Tarragon + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Tarragon + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Tomato + tarragontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together391 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken broth
Provides the savoury liquid base that the jelly is made from.
Tomatoes
Add the main flavour, colour and acidity to the stock.
Leaf gelatine
Sets the flavoured liquid into a firm, sliceable jelly as it cools.
Egg whites and shells
Bind fine particles during clearing so the finished jelly is clear rather than cloudy.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds sharpness and a light herbal aroma that balances the tomato.
Carmine or cochineal
Adds a red colour to the jelly.

The step that matters

Clear the liquid. Clearing depends on the egg whites and shells slowly trapping fine solids as the liquid heats, so the liquid should be disturbed as little as possible. Stirring or boiling too hard breaks up the raft and leaves the jelly cloudy.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, tarragon, vinegar, lemon, egg, 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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