Skip to main content
Salad

Tomato Jelly Salad

A salad made with tomato, onion, celery, sugar, salt, and gelatin, set into a jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Tomato Jelly Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. Cook the tomatoes, onion, and celery in a pot for about 15 minutes.

  2. Add the sugar and salt, then strain the mixture.

  3. Dissolve the gelatin in water and add it to the strained mixture.

  4. Bring to a boil, then pour into a mold to harden.

Serve

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  5. Celery + gelatintop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together172 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatin
Sets the strained tomato liquid into a firm, sliceable jelly as it cools.
Tomatoes
Provide the main body, acidity and flavor of the jelly.
Onion
Adds savory aroma and depth to the cooked tomato base.
Celery
Adds aromatic, savory flavor and a little fresh bite to the base.
Sugar
Balances the acidity of the tomatoes with a touch of sweetness.

The step that matters

Dissolve the gelatin fully before adding it. Gelatin must be completely dissolved in water before it joins the warm mixture, or it will not blend evenly. Boiling the mixture afterward is needed so the gelatin stays fully dispersed and sets uniformly as it cools in the mold.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, sugar, celery, 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.

You might also like

Tomato SaladTomato Salad179 recipesChicken SaladChicken Salad623 recipesSalad DressingSalad Dressing491 recipesCold SlawCold Slaw160 recipes