Skip to main content
Dessert

Tomato- Jelly

A sweetened tomato jelly made by stewing tomatoes, straining, adding sugar and starch, and boiling until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Tomato and corn match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,099 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Tomato- Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Stew the tomatoes with salt and pepper until soft.

  2. Strain the pulp through a fine sieve or jelly bag.

  3. Add ½ cup white sugar and 1 tablespoon corn-starch dissolved in ½ cup cold water to the strained tomato.

  4. Heat the mixture over the fire, stirring until it boils for one minute.

  5. Cool the jelly before serving with meats.

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 + corntop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,099 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Pepper + corntop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + corntop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,168 recipes

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

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

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

Pepper and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,401 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

Tomatoes
Provide the main body and flavor of the jelly once stewed and strained.
Corn-starch
Thickens the strained tomato liquid into a jelly when heated and boiled.
White sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity of the tomatoes.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture for one minute while stirring. Cornstarch only thickens fully once it reaches a boil and its granules swell and gelatinize. Stirring prevents scorching and lumps, and a full minute at the boil ensures the starch sets the jelly.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Tomatothe original

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

More tomato jelly recipes

Salad 39 See all 108 →

You might also like

Corn CakeCorn Cake90 recipesCorn Starch CakeCorn Starch Cake89 recipesCorn CakesCorn Cakes22 recipesGreen Corn PuddingGreen Corn Pudding14 recipes