Skip to main content
Dessert

Recipe for Tomato Jelly

A gelatin set tomato jelly made with tomatoes, pepper, onion, celery, mushrooms, bay leaf, salt, and Tabasco sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Tomato and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and 3,377 recipes mention both. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Recipe for Tomato Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cook the tomatoes with all ingredients except gelatin and cold water for 15 minutes.

  2. Dissolve the gelatin in the cold water.

  3. Combine the cooked mixture with the dissolved gelatin.

  4. Pour into a mold and refrigerate until set.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together3,377 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together16,012 recipes

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

  4. Celery + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together4,668 recipes

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

  5. Sauce + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together104 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked tomatoes
Provide the main body and flavor of the jelly.
Gelatin
Sets the liquid into a firm jelly as it cools.
Mushroom trimmings
Add savory, earthy depth to the tomato base.

The step that matters

Dissolve the gelatin fully before combining. Gelatin must be completely dissolved in the water before it is added to the warm tomato mixture. Undissolved granules can leave gritty spots and uneven setting throughout the jelly.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, pepper, sauce, celery, mushroom, gelatin, clove):

  1. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  2. Carrotbetter flavor fit
  3. Lettucebetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, sauce, celery, mushroom, gelatin, clove. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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

Clove CakeClove Cake53 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipes