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Tomato Aspect

A chilled tomato aspic made with gelatin, tomato, onion, spices, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Tomato Aspect

Ingredients

Directions

Make the aspic

  1. Dissolve gelatin in cold water and bring to a boil.

  2. Add strained tomato, grated onion, celery seed, bay leaves, cloves, and paprika.

  3. Strain the mixture and stir in salt, tarragon vinegar, lemon juice, parsley, and capers.

  4. Fold in whipped cream until light.

Set and serve

  1. Pour into molds and refrigerate until cold.

  2. Serve on lettuce leaves with mayonnaise dressing. Optionally, add 1 cup of chopped chicken or meat.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Tarragon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Tarragon + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

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

  4. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  5. Celery + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together456 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Sets the tomato liquid into a firm, sliceable gel when chilled.
Strained tomato
Provides the main tomato flavour and most of the liquid base.
Whipped cream
Adds fat and a lighter, softer texture to the set aspic.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the tomato flavour.
Capers
Add a salty, tangy bite that contrasts with the tomato.

The step that matters

Dissolve the gelatine fully before adding the tomato. Gelatine only sets when it is completely dissolved and evenly distributed. Boiling it briefly ensures full dissolution, and undissolved granules would leave weak or grainy patches in the set aspic.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, celery, clove, tarragon, vinegar, lemon, parsley. 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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