Skip to main content
Dessert

Tomato Jelly

A sweet and spiced tomato jelly set in molds and served chilled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Tomato Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the tomato base

  1. In a pot, combine the tomatoes, cinnamon, cloves, onion, vinegar, bay leaf, salt, and pepper.

  2. Cook until the tomatoes are dissolved.

  3. Pass the mixture through a sieve to remove solids.

Set and serve

  1. Soak the gelatine in water for a few minutes, then add it to the hot tomato mixture.

  2. Pour the liquid into small moulds or jelly glasses, filling them halfway.

  3. Set the moulds on ice to chill and set.

  4. Serve on a lettuce leaf 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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

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

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

  5. Cinnamon + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,890 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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 flavour of the jelly, and most of its liquid.
Knox's gelatine
Forms a network that sets the strained tomato liquid into a firm jelly when chilled.
Onion
Adds savoury depth to the tomato base as it cooks down.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the tomato flavour.

The step that matters

Adding the gelatine to the hot tomato mixture. Gelatine must be fully softened and then dissolved in the hot liquid; if it is not fully dissolved or the mixture is too hot, it will not set properly, and if it cools too much before pouring, it can set unevenly in the moulds.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, cinnamon, clove, vinegar, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, cinnamon, clove, vinegar, pepper. 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

Cinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesClove CakeClove Cake53 recipesCinnamon CakeCinnamon Cake42 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipes