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Dessert

Jellied Tomato

A chilled tomato and onion gelée served on lettuce leaves with mayonnaise dressing.

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 ↓

Jellied Tomato

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. Boil the onion in the tomato juice until soft, then let it stand overnight.

  2. The next morning, dissolve the gelatine in ½ cup of water.

  3. Bring the tomato and onion mixture to a boil, then pour it over the dissolved gelatine.

  4. Season with coarse sea salt and pour into molds.

Serve

  1. Once set, turn out onto lettuce leaves and fill the center with mayonnaise dressing.

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).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomato juice
Forms the main body and flavour of the jelly.
Gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm, sliceable jelly.
Onion
Adds savoury depth to the tomato juice as it steeps.
Mayonnaise dressing
Adds richness and creamy contrast to the tangy jelly.

The step that matters

Dissolve the gelatine fully before combining. Gelatine only sets when fully dissolved and evenly mixed into the liquid. Undissolved granules leave weak or grainy spots, so the jelly may not hold its shape when turned out.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Cucumberfits better
  2. Okrafits better
  3. Beetrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, 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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