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Tomato Jelly

A gelatinous tomato preserve made with tomatoes, water, spices, sugar, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 27,047 recipes mention both. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Tomato Jelly

2 cups

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soften the gelatine in cold water.

  2. Simmer the tomatoes, water, bay leaf, onion, celery leaves, cloves, pepper berries, sugar, and salt for 20 minutes.

  3. Add lemon juice.

Make and set the jelly

  1. Pour the mixture over the softened gelatine and stir until dissolved.

  2. Press through a sieve to yield 2 cups.

  3. Pour into moistened moulds.

  4. Chill.

Serve

  1. Unmould onto lettuce.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Celery + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together3,377 recipes

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

  4. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together16,012 recipes

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

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 jelly that holds its shape when unmoulded.
Tomatoes
Provide the main body, flavour and natural acidity of the jelly.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the tomatoes and lemon juice.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the tomato flavour.

The step that matters

Dissolve the gelatine fully. Gelatine only sets when it is completely dissolved into the warm liquid. Stirring until no granules remain and the mixture is evenly combined ensures a uniform, firm jelly instead of weak or grainy patches.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, celery, clove, pepper, sugar, lemon):

  1. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  2. Carrotbetter flavor fit
  3. Okrabetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, celery, clove, pepper, sugar, lemon. 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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