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Tomato Jelly to Serve with Cold Turkey

A tomato jelly made with tomatoes, sugar, ginger, lemon juice, salt, and corn starch, served cold with turkey.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,154 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Tomato Jelly to Serve with Cold Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Strain the tomatoes.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the strained tomatoes, ginger, sugar, lemon juice, and salt.

  3. Moisten the corn starch in cold water, then add it to the tomato mixture.

Set and serve

  1. Boil for a moment, then pour into a mold to cool.

  2. Serve cold with turkey.

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. Ginger + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + corntop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Tomato + gingertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,887 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Ginger + corntop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together412 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the liquid and flavor base that the jelly is made from.
Corn starch
Thickens the tomato mixture so it sets into a firm jelly when cooled.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the tomatoes and lemon.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the tomato flavor.

The step that matters

Adding the corn starch. Corn starch must be moistened in cold water before it goes into the hot mixture; added dry, it clumps and does not thicken evenly. Boiling briefly activates its thickening so the jelly sets when cooled.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, ginger, lemon, corn):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, ginger, lemon, corn. 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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