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Dessert

Tomato Creams

A chilled tomato dessert made with tomatoes, cream, gelatin, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Tomato Creams

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomato base

  1. Scald the tomatoes and rub them through a sieve.

  2. Dissolve the gelatine in the gravy and season well.

  3. Add the tomato pulp and lemon juice to the mixture.

Make the cream and set

  1. Whip the cream until stiff, then add the tomato mixture when cold.

  2. Stir until it begins to set, then pour into small wet moulds.

Serve

  1. Serve garnished with 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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

  3. Tomato + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Cream + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Cream + lemontop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,640 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the main flavour and colour, and the pulp that gives body to the cream.
Cream
Adds richness and a light, airy texture when whipped into the mixture.
Gelatine
Sets the liquid so the mixture holds its shape when turned out of the moulds.
Clear gravy or stock
Carries the gelatine and adds savoury depth to the set mixture.

The step that matters

Stir until it begins to set, then pour into moulds. Gelatine sets as it cools, so the mixture must be thick enough to hold the whipped cream in suspension but still pourable. Pouring too late leaves lumps or weak structure, and pouring too early lets the cream separate and settle.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, pepper, lemon):

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, pepper, 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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