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Dessert

Tomato Jelly

A gelatinous tomato preserve made with tomatoes, onion, spices, vinegar, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 11,917 recipes mention both. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Tomato Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gelatine

  1. Soak the gelatine in cold water.

Make the jelly

  1. Boil the tomatoes, onion, salt, and sugar for about 15 minutes.

  2. Force the mixture through a sieve.

  3. Add the seasoning, spices, and vinegar to the strained mixture.

  4. Stir in the gelatine while the mixture is still hot.

  5. Pour into molds and refrigerate to harden.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together9,259 recipes

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

  3. Cinnamon + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,581 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned 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

Gelatine
Sets the tomato liquid into a firm, sliceable jelly as it cools.
Tomatoes
Provide the main body, flavour, and liquid base of the jelly.
Sugar
Balances the tomato acidity and adds mild sweetness to the flavour.
Vinegar
Adds sharpness that brightens the tomato flavour and cuts its richness.

The step that matters

Stir in the gelatine while the mixture is still hot. Gelatine must be fully dissolved in hot liquid to set evenly. If the mixture cools too much first, the gelatine can clump or set unevenly, leaving a grainy or weak jelly.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, cinnamon, nutmeg, vinegar, mustard, sauce, sugar):

  1. Horseradishbetter flavor fit
  2. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  3. Shallotbetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, cinnamon, nutmeg, vinegar, mustard, sauce, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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