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Dessert

Tomato Jelly

A sweet and spicy tomato jelly made with tomatoes, cinnamon, onion, bay leaf, vinegar, salt, pepper, gelatine, horseradish, whipped cream, and cayenne.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and horseradish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 515 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Tomato Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. Cook the tomatoes, cinnamon, onion, bay leaf, vinegar, salt, and pepper until the tomatoes are soft.

  2. Strain the mixture.

  3. Dissolve the gelatine in cold water. Pour the hot tomato mixture over the gelatine and stir.

  4. Pour into moulds and cool.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, mix grated horseradish, whipped cream, vinegar, salt, and cayenne to taste.

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. Cinnamon + horseradishtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together515 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Onion + horseradishtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

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

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

  5. Cinnamon + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,890 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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 flavour of the jelly.
Gelatine
Sets the tomato liquid into a firm, sliceable jelly.
Whipped cream
Adds richness and a soft, mild texture to the sauce.
Horseradish
Contributes sharp, pungent heat to the sauce.

The step that matters

Dissolve the gelatine in cold water before adding the hot tomato mixture. Gelatine must be fully hydrated and dissolved before it meets the hot liquid. Undissolved granules can remain as lumps, and the jelly may set unevenly.

Swap the cinnamon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, onion, vinegar, pepper, horseradish, cream):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Cinnamonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, onion, vinegar, pepper, horseradish, 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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