Skip to main content
Main

Tomato Salad

A chilled tomato gelatin set in a mold, served on lettuce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Tomato Salad

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 Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Heat the tomatoes and strain them to use only the juice.

  2. Soak the gelatine in cold water for 30 minutes.

Set and serve

  1. Add the soaked gelatine to the strained tomato juice along with pepper, salt, celery salt, sugar, and cayenne.

  2. Pour the mixture into a mold.

  3. Refrigerate until set, then unmold onto a lettuce leaf.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  4. Coffee + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,344 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Tomato + coffeetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together123 recipes

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

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 juice into a firm, sliceable gel.
Tomato juice
Provides the main liquid and tomato flavour of the salad.

The step that matters

Refrigerate until set. Gelatine only firms when the liquid is fully chilled and left undisturbed long enough to form its network. Unmolding too early can cause the salad to collapse or tear.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (coffee, pepper, celery, sugar):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against coffee, pepper, celery, sugar. 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipes