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Tomato Jelly Salad

A chilled tomato salad thickened with gelatin, flavored with spices and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Tomato Jelly Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the tomato base

  1. Put the tomatoes in a saucepan and add all ingredients except the gelatine, cold water, and lemon juice.

  2. Let the mixture simmer for 20 to 25 minutes.

  3. While hot, strain through a sieve and add the gelatine that has been soaked in ½ cup of water.

  4. Stir until the gelatine is dissolved, then add the lemon juice.

Set and serve

  1. Strain into a cold mold and set on ice to firm up.

  2. Serve on lettuce leaves with mayonnaise or boiled salad 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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Clove + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Canned tomatoes
Provide the main body and tomato flavour of the jelly.
Knox's gelatine
Sets the strained tomato liquid into a firm, sliceable jelly.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the tomato flavour and balances sweetness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity of the tomatoes and lemon.

The step that matters

Dissolving the gelatine while the mixture is hot. Gelatine must fully dissolve in the hot liquid before it is chilled; undissolved granules leave weak spots and a grainy texture in the set jelly.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, clove, sugar, parsley, onion, lemon):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, clove, sugar, parsley, onion, lemon. 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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