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Salad

Tomato Jelly Salad

A chilled tomato gelatin salad made with tomatoes, sugar, onion, bay leaf, cloves, gelatin, salt, pepper, served on lettuce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Tomato Jelly Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Combine tomatoes, sugar, onion, bay leaf, and cloves in a pot.

  2. Bring to a boil and let it boil for 15 minutes.

  3. Strain the mixture through a sieve.

Set and serve

  1. Dissolve gelatin in cold water and add it to the strained mixture along with salt and pepper.

  2. Pour into individual molds and chill until set.

  3. Serve on lettuce leaves and garnish as desired.

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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

  3. Sugar + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the main flavor and liquid base of the salad.
Gelatin
Sets the tomato liquid into a firm, sliceable gel when chilled.
Sugar
Balances the acidity of the tomatoes with a touch of sweetness.

The step that matters

Dissolving the gelatin in cold water. Gelatin must be fully dissolved and evenly mixed into the warm strained liquid before chilling, or it can set in clumps or unevenly, leaving a weak or grainy gel.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, sugar, clove, pepper, gelatin. 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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