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Salad

Tomato Jelly Salad

A salad made with tomato jelly, lettuce, 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 lettuce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,655 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tomato Jelly Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. Open the can of tomatoes and pour them into a stoneware stew pan.

  2. Bring to a boil and let simmer for 10 minutes.

  3. Force the mixture through a strainer using a potato masher.

  4. Add salt, powdered sugar, and gelatin that has soaked in cold water for 15 minutes.

  5. Pour into small cups and chill.

Serve

  1. Serve in lettuce with 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. Tomato + lettucetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,655 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Gelatin + lettucetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together128 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Sugar + lettucetop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,486 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Tomato + gelatintop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-nonanal (fatty, waxy).

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 salad.
Gelatin
Sets the tomato liquid into a firm, sliceable jelly as it chills.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the acidity of the tomatoes.
Mayonnaise
Adds richness and fat to contrast with the tart tomato jelly.

The step that matters

Soaking the gelatin. Gelatin must hydrate in cold water before it is added, so it dissolves evenly into the warm tomato mixture. Adding it dry or unsoaked can leave lumps and uneven setting.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, gelatin, lettuce):

  1. Beetrootfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Cucumberfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, gelatin, lettuce. 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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