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Tomato Aspic

A chilled tomato-based aspic made with gelatin, onion, celery, and optional sugar, served on lettuce with mayonnaise dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,033 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Tomato Aspic

Ingredients

Directions

Make the aspic

  1. Boil the white onion and celery in the tomato liquor for 20 minutes.

  2. Strain the mixture.

  3. Pour it over the soaked gelatin in cold water.

  4. If the tomato is very tart, add the white sugar along with salt and pepper to taste.

  5. Strain through a thick cloth.

Set and serve

  1. Set aside to form in one large mold or several small ones.

  2. If using small molds, serve each shape on a lettuce leaf covered 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. Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

  3. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + lettucetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,655 recipes

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

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatin
Sets the tomato liquid into a firm, sliceable jelly as it cools.
Tomato liquor
Provides the main tomato flavour and liquid base of the aspic.
White onion
Adds savoury aroma to the tomato liquid during boiling.
Celery
Adds savoury, aromatic flavour to the tomato liquid during boiling.

The step that matters

Pour over the soaked gelatin. Gelatin must be softened in cold water first so it dissolves evenly into the warm liquid. Adding it dry or lumpy can leave undissolved clumps and uneven setting.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, celery, gelatin, sugar, pepper, 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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