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Dessert

Recipe for Tomato Jelly

A sweet and savory tomato preserve made with tomatoes, onion, celery, bay leaf, salt, water, pepper, mushroom trimmings, tarragon vinegar, and gelatin.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 456 recipes mention both. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Recipe for Tomato Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the tomato base

  1. Cook the tomatoes with all the ingredients except the gelatin.

  2. Soak the gelatin in cold water until soft.

  3. Strain the tomato mixture and return the liquid to the heat.

Set the jelly

  1. Stir in the softened gelatin until dissolved.

  2. Pour into a mold and refrigerate until set.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Celery + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together456 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together3,377 recipes

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

  3. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together16,012 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + tarragontop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the main flavor and liquid base of the jelly.
Gelatin
Sets the strained liquid into a firm, sliceable jelly as it cools.
Mushroom trimmings
Add earthy savory depth to the tomato base during cooking.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the tomato flavor.

The step that matters

Dissolving the gelatin. Gelatin must be fully dissolved in the hot liquid before setting. Undissolved granules leave gritty spots and uneven firmness, so the mixture should be stirred until clear and no longer grainy.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, celery, clove, pepper, mushroom, tarragon, vinegar):

  1. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  2. Carrotbetter flavor fit
  3. Shallotbetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, celery, clove, pepper, mushroom, tarragon, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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