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Dessert

Recipe for Tomato Jelly

A gelatinous preserve made from cooked tomatoes, red pepper, onion, celery, bay leaf, cloves, tarragon vinegar, salt, and gelatin.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 456 recipes mention both. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Recipe for Tomato Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the tomato jelly

  1. Cook the tomatoes with all ingredients except gelatin until well combined.

  2. Soak the gelatin in cold water for 5 minutes.

  3. Add the soaked gelatin to the hot tomato mixture and stir until dissolved.

Set and unmold

  1. Pour the mixture into a mold and refrigerate until set.

  2. To unmold, immerse the mold in warm water for a few seconds, then invert onto a serving dish.

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. Celery + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together456 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

  5. Pepper + tarragontop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Sets the tomato mixture into a firm jelly as it cools.
Cooked tomatoes
Provide the main body, flavour and colour of the jelly.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the tomato flavour.

The step that matters

Dissolving the gelatine in the hot mixture. Gelatine must be fully dissolved into the hot tomato mixture before setting. Undissolved granules leave gritty or weak spots, and gelatine only sets properly once it is evenly distributed and then cooled.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

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

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

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

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