Skip to main content
Main

Tomato Salad

A chilled tomato gelatin salad served with mayonnaise dressing.

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

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 Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gelatin

  1. Soak the gelatin in a little of the tomato juice.

  2. Scald the remaining tomatoes, add the soaked gelatin, and stir until dissolved.

  3. Season with salt and cayenne pepper.

  4. Fill teacups a third full with the mixture and refrigerate overnight to harden.

Serve

  1. Line individual salad dishes with crisp lettuce leaves.

  2. Turn out a tomato gelatin into each dish and serve 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

  3. Pepper + lettucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  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

Canned tomatoes
Provide the main body and flavor of the gelatin.
Gelatin
Sets the tomato liquid into a firm, sliceable mold when chilled.

The step that matters

Dissolving the gelatin in hot tomatoes. Gelatin must be fully dissolved in the scalded tomatoes before chilling. Undissolved granules leave gritty spots and weak patches, and the set depends on even distribution throughout the liquid.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against gelatin, pepper, 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipesCream Tomato SoupCream Tomato Soup28 recipes