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Tomato Jelly

A gelatinous tomato spread made by stewing tomatoes with spices, then cooling with gelatin.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Tomato Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the gelatine in cold water.

Make the jelly

  1. Stew the tomatoes with cloves, salt, pepper, onion, and mixed herbs for 30 minutes.

  2. Add vinegar and the soaked gelatine, then strain the mixture.

  3. Stir occasionally as it cools to mix the pulp well.

Serve

  1. Serve on lettuce leaves with a spoonful of mayonnaise if desired.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Clove + tomatotop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Sets the tomato liquid into a firm, sliceable jelly as it cools.
Tomatoes
Provide the main body, flavour and colour of the jelly.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the tomato flavour.

The step that matters

Stir occasionally as it cools. Gelatine begins to set as the mixture cools, so stirring keeps the pulp evenly distributed instead of settling or forming separate layers before the jelly firms.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, pepper, tomato, vinegar. 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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