Skip to main content
Dessert

Tomato Jelly

A gelatin set tomato mixture flavored with celery, onion, mace, salt, pepper, and bay leaf.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. In a pot, combine tomatoes, celery, onion juice, ground mace, salt, pepper, and bay leaf.

  2. Cook for 1 hour, then remove from heat and let cool slightly.

  3. Stir in the gelatin until fully dissolved.

Set and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into small molds and refrigerate until set.

  2. Serve with mayonnaise as a salad.

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

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

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

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

  3. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. 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

Tomatoes
Provide the main body and tangy flavor of the jelly.
Gelatin
Sets the cooked tomato mixture into a firm, sliceable jelly as it cools.
Celery
Adds aromatic, savory flavor to the tomato base.

The step that matters

Stir in the gelatin until fully dissolved. Gelatin must dissolve completely in the warm mixture; undissolved granules leave gritty spots and uneven setting. Cooling only slightly before adding it keeps the gelatin liquid and evenly distributed.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, celery, onion, pepper, gelatin. 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 jelly recipes

Salad 39 See all 108 →

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes