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Salad

Tomato Jelly Salad

A chilled tomato soup gelatin set into molds and served atop lettuce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tomato Jelly Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. In a pot, combine the tomato soup with an equal amount of hot water, salt, pepper, and sugar, then bring to a boil.

  2. Soak the gelatine in the cold water for 30 minutes, then stir it into the hot soup until dissolved.

  3. Pour the mixture into small individual molds that have been rinsed with cold water.

Serve

  1. Once set, unmold the jelly onto nests of lettuce leaves.

  2. Serve with salad cream or 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 + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Pepper + creamtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Tomato + creamtop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,034 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Pepper + sugartop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,401 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Pepper and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Sets the hot tomato liquid into a firm, sliceable jelly as it cools.
Tomato soup
Forms the base of the jelly, giving its main flavour and colour.
Sugar
Adds mild sweetness that balances the acidity of the tomato.

The step that matters

Dissolve the gelatine completely in the hot soup. Gelatine only sets properly when it is fully dissolved and evenly distributed. Stirring it into the hot soup until no grains remain gives a smooth, uniform jelly. Undissolved gelatine can leave a grainy texture or weak spots in the set.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, sugar, cream. 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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