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Tomato Jelly

A savory tomato gelatin made with carrot, onion, celery, parsley, beef extract, and gelatin, served with lettuce and mayonnaise.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Tomato Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. Boil the carrot, onion, celery, and parsley together.

  2. Add the can of tomatoes and the extract of beef; boil for 10 minutes.

  3. Strain the mixture and add the gelatin dissolved in cold water.

  4. Return to the heat, season with salt and pepper, and let it boil once.

Serve

  1. Serve in individual molds with lettuce and 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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

  4. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  5. Celery + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatin
Sets the strained liquid into a firm jelly once it cools.
Tomatoes
Provide the main body, acidity and colour of the jelly.
Extract of beef
Adds savoury, meaty flavour to the tomato base.
Carrot
Adds sweetness and body to the base as it simmers.

The step that matters

Dissolving the gelatin in cold water. Gelatin must be fully hydrated before it is added, then dissolved in the hot mixture. Undissolved granules leave gritty spots, and over-boiling after adding it can weaken the set, so the final boil should be brief.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, celery, parsley, tomato, beef, gelatin, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, celery, parsley, tomato, beef, gelatin, pepper. 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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