Skip to main content
Main

Tomato Aspic Jelly

A gelatinous tomato aspic made with tomatoes, onion, spices, and gelatin, garnished with lettuce and served with mayonnaise.

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

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 Aspic Jelly

six individual moulds or one large mould

Ingredients

Directions

Make the aspic

  1. Combine tomatoes, chopped onion, allspice, peppercorns, salt, and bay leaf in a saucepan.

  2. Bring to a boil and cook until the onion is soft.

  3. Strain the mixture through a wire sieve, using the back of a spoon to push as much through as possible.

  4. Dissolve the gelatin in a small amount of warm water. Add the dissolved gelatin to the strained mixture.

Set and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into one large mould or six individual moulds.

  2. Garnish with shredded lettuce. Serve 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. Onion + lettucetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,562 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. Allspice + lettucetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together46 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Tomato + allspicetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together670 recipes

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

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, sliceable jelly.
Tomatoes
Provide the main body, acidity and flavour of the aspic.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma to the tomato base as it softens.

The step that matters

Dissolve the gelatin in a small amount of warm water. Gelatine must be fully dissolved before it is added, or it will form lumps and set unevenly. Too much heat can weaken its setting power, so keep the water warm rather than boiling.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, onion, 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.

More tomato aspic recipes

Salad 10 See all 25 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipesCream Tomato SoupCream Tomato Soup28 recipes