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Tomato Aspic Border

A gelatin set tomato aspic served as a border around a salad.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 Aspic Border

Ingredients

Directions

Make the aspic

  1. Stew the can of tomatoes with the chopped onion, celery salt, bay leaf, and mixed spice.

  2. Rub the mixture through a sieve and add enough boiling water to make 3 cups.

  3. Stir in the soaked and dissolved gelatin and pour into a border mold.

Set and serve

  1. Cool the aspic and fill the center with your preferred salad.

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. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  4. Celery + gelatintop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together172 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-pinene (pine, resin).

  5. Tomato + gelatintop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-nonanal (fatty, waxy).

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatin
Sets the tomato liquid into a firm, sliceable aspic when cooled.
Tomatoes
Provide the main body, color, and tangy flavor of the aspic.
Onion
Adds savory aromatic depth to the tomato base.

The step that matters

Rub the mixture through a sieve and add enough boiling water to make 3 cups. Straining removes solids so the aspic sets clear and smooth, and measuring the liquid accurately keeps the gelatin-to-liquid ratio right so it sets firmly rather than soft or runny.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, celery, gelatin. 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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