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Salad

Tomato Jelly Salad

A chilled tomato jelly salad with onions, celery, cloves, whipped cream, and mayonnaise.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 Jelly Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. Cook the tomatoes, celery, onions, and cloves together.

  2. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve.

  3. Dissolve the gelatine in a little water.

  4. Stir the dissolved gelatine into the strained tomatoes.

  5. When the mixture is partly cold, add the whipped cream.

  6. Pour everything into a ring mold.

Serve

  1. Turn out the jelly.

  2. Fill the center with chopped cabbage and nuts.

  3. Pour mayonnaise over the top.

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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  4. Clove + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Sets the strained tomato liquid into a firm jelly that holds its shape when turned out.
Whipped cream
Adds richness and a lighter, softer texture to the jelly.
Tomatoes
Provide the main flavour and liquid base of the jelly.

The step that matters

Add the whipped cream when the mixture is only partly cold. If the mixture is still hot, the cream will melt and deflate; if it is fully set, the cream will not blend in evenly. Partly cold gelatine mixtures thicken enough to suspend the cream without losing its airy structure.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, onion, celery, pepper, 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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