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Dessert

Tomato Glace

A tomato-based glaze made with gelatin, seasoned with pepper, salt, and celery seed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,377 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Tomato Glace

Ingredients

Directions

Make the glaze

  1. Soak the gelatine in cold water for 1 hour.

  2. Add the tomatoes to the soaked gelatine and bring to a boil for 10 minutes.

  3. Season with pepper, coarse sea salt, and celery seed.

  4. Mash the mixture through a colander.

Set and serve

  1. Let it harden and serve with mayonnaise.

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. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

Gelatine
Sets the mixture into a firm glaze as it cools.
Tomatoes
Provide the main body, colour and tomato flavour of the glaze.

The step that matters

Boiling the gelatine mixture. Gelatine must be fully dissolved in the hot tomato mixture, but prolonged boiling can weaken its setting power. Keep the boil to the stated time so the glaze sets firmly rather than staying soft.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, celery):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Mustardfits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, celery. 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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