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Salad with Tomato Aspic

A chilled tomato aspic served as a salad, filled with celery mayonnaise.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Salad with Tomato Aspic

Ingredients

Directions

Make the aspic

  1. Place the can of tomatoes over the fire.

  2. Add the onion, bay leaf, parsley, and celery.

  3. Let simmer for 10 minutes.

  4. Strain the mixture carefully, removing all seeds.

  5. To the strained liquid, add the softened gelatin, salt, and paprika or cayenne to taste.

Set and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a mold and let it harden.

  2. At serving time, turn out the aspic and fill the center with celery 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. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 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 tomato liquid into a firm, sliceable aspic that holds its shape.
Tomatoes
Provide the main liquid, flavor, and color of the aspic.
Celery
Adds aromatic flavor to the tomato liquid during simmering.

The step that matters

Strain the mixture carefully, removing all seeds. Seeds and fibrous bits left in the liquid make the aspic cloudy and gritty. Thorough straining gives a clear, smooth set that unmolds cleanly.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, parsley, 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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