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Tomato Jelly Salad

A gelatin-based tomato salad with onions, parsley, celery, and pepper, served on lettuce with mayonnaise.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Tomato Jelly Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the box of gelatin in cold water.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the canned tomatoes, whole dry pepper, sliced onion, chopped parsley, chopped celery, and salt to taste.

  3. Cook until the onion is tender, then push the mixture through a strainer.

Make the jelly

  1. Bring the strained mixture to a boil and pour it over the gelatin; beat well.

  2. Pour the mixture into small molds and cool.

Serve

  1. Serve the jelly on lettuce leaves with mayonnaise.

  2. Make sandwiches with rye bread and Swiss cheese, toast them in the oven, and serve immediately.

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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

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

  5. Parsley + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,483 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatin
Sets the strained tomato liquid into a firm, sliceable jelly.
Canned tomatoes
Provide the main body, acidity and flavor of the jelly.
Onion
Adds savory aroma and depth to the tomato base.
Swiss cheese
Adds melting fat and savory flavor to the sandwiches.

The step that matters

Pour the boiling mixture into the gelatin and beat well. Gelatin must fully dissolve in hot liquid to set evenly. Undissolved granules or a lukewarm mixture can leave lumps or a weak, uneven set once cooled.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against gelatin, tomato, pepper, parsley, celery, lettuce, rye. 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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