Skip to main content
Main

Tomato Jelly

A gelatinous tomato-based dish made by simmering tomatoes with stock, onion, clove, peppercorns, salt, sugar, ketchup, and gelatin.

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

Why it works: Sugar and gelatin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,778 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Tomato Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. Boil the soup stock, tomatoes, onion, clove, peppercorns, salt, sugar, and ketchup together for 30 minutes or until the tomatoes are soft.

  2. Soften the gelatin in ½ cup of cold water, then stir it into the tomato mixture until dissolved.

  3. Mold the mixture in a ring mold or cup.

Serve

  1. Serve with celery salad mixed with mayonnaise or a cooked dressing in the center, surrounded by lettuce.

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Sugar + ketchuptop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together260 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  4. Ketchup + gelatintop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Tomato + clovetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatin
Sets the tomato liquid into a firm, sliceable jelly when chilled.
Tomatoes
Provide the main body, acidity and flavor of the jelly.
Soup stock
Adds savory depth as the liquid base of the jelly.
Sugar
Balances the acidity of the tomatoes and rounds out the flavor.

The step that matters

Dissolving the gelatin. Gelatin must be softened in cold water first, then fully dissolved into the hot tomato mixture. Undissolved granules leave gritty spots, and the jelly will not set evenly if the gelatin is not completely melted before molding.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Cucumberfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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

More tomato jelly recipes

Salad 39 See all 108 →

You might also like

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