Skip to main content
Main

Tomato Jelly

A savory jelly made from tomatoes, onion, celery, bay leaf, cloves, salt, paprika, and tarragon vinegar, set with gelatin.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Celery and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 456 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Tomato Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the gelatine in cold water.

Make the jelly

  1. Cook the tomatoes, onion, celery, bay leaf, cloves, salt, and paprika for 10 minutes.

  2. Add the tarragon vinegar and the dissolved gelatine; stir until combined.

  3. Strain the mixture and pour it into one large mold or several small molds.

Serve

  1. Serve with green vegetables or meat as a salad.

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. Celery + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together456 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Clove + tarragontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together548 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  5. Celery + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm, sliceable jelly once it cools.
Tomatoes
Provide the main body, flavour and colour of the jelly.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the tomato flavour.

The step that matters

Adding the dissolved gelatine. Gelatine must be fully dissolved before it is stirred in, or it will leave lumps or uneven set. It should also be added to a mixture that is warm but not boiling, since prolonged high heat can weaken its setting power.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, celery, clove, tarragon, vinegar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, celery, clove, tarragon, vinegar. 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.

More tomato jelly recipes

Salad 39 See all 108 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipes