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Salad

Tomato Jelly Salad

A chilled tomato salad thickened with gelatin and clarified with egg white.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 Jelly Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the tomato jelly

  1. Stew the tomatoes with salt, pepper, cayenne, and bay leaf.

  2. Soak the gelatin in water.

  3. Strain the tomatoes, return to heat, and add the beaten egg white to clarify.

  4. Stir for 1 minute, then add the gelatin and strain through a cloth into a mold.

Set and serve

  1. Chill until set, then turn out of the mold and serve on lettuce with cream 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 + 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. Pepper + creamtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Pepper and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the main body and flavour of the jelly.
Gelatine
Sets the tomato liquid into a firm jelly when chilled.
Egg white
Collects particles as it cooks, clarifying the tomato liquid for a clearer jelly.

The step that matters

Clarifying with egg white. The egg white must be beaten into the hot strained tomatoes and stirred so it cooks and traps fine particles. If it is not stirred or the liquid is not properly heated, the jelly stays cloudy and may taste of egg.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, egg, lettuce, cream. 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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