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Dessert

Tomato Jelly

A gelatin-based tomato preserve flavored with salt, cayenne, celery salt, bay leaf, and Worcestershire sauce, set in cucumber-lined molds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,409 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tomato Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the gelatine in cold water.

  2. Rub the canned tomatoes through a colander.

  3. Flavor the tomatoes with salt, cayenne pepper, celery salt, and a bay leaf.

Make the jelly

  1. Add the flavored tomatoes to the soaked gelatine and heat until boiling.

  2. Remove from heat and stir in Worcestershire sauce.

  3. When the mixture is cool and starting to set, pour it into moulds lined with cucumber slices.

Serve

  1. Turn out the jelly and serve garnished with lettuce leaves.

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. Cucumber + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,409 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + cucumbertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,405 recipes

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

  3. Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Sets the tomato liquid into a firm, sliceable jelly as it cools.
Canned tomatoes
Provide the main body, acidity and flavor of the jelly.
Worcestershire sauce
Adds savory, tangy depth to the tomato base.

The step that matters

Pour the jelly only when it is cool and starting to set. Gelatine sets as it cools. If the mixture is still hot, the mould may not hold its shape, and if it has set too far, the layers may not blend or pour cleanly into the cucumber-lined moulds.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, pepper, sauce, cucumber, lettuce):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Corianderfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, sauce, cucumber, 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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