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Tomato Aspic

A chilled tomato gelatin with carrots, onion, red pepper, stuffed olive, nut meat, served with mayonnaise.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and olive are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,539 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Tomato Aspic

Ingredients

Directions

Make the aspic

  1. Boil the carrots in a granite pan with the tomato juice, onion, and red pepper until the carrots are tender.

  2. Strain the mixture.

  3. Dissolve the gelatin in hot water.

  4. Combine the dissolved gelatin with the strained tomato juice.

  5. Allow the mixture to sit until it begins to set.

Mold and serve

  1. Pour a spoonful of the mixture into a cup mold.

  2. Place the mold in the blanched nut meat.

  3. Add more juice, the halved stuffed olive, and additional juice until the cup is full.

  4. Set the mold on ice to harden.

  5. Arrange watercress or lettuce leaves on plates.

  6. Turn the jelly out of the mold.

  7. Serve with mayonnaise.

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. Tomato + olivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,539 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,606 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

Carrots
Cooked until tender to add body, sweetness and colour to the juice.
Tomato juice
Forms the main liquid and provides the tomato flavour and acidity of the aspic.
Gelatin
Sets the liquid into a firm jelly that holds its shape when unmolded.
Red pepper
Adds fresh, slightly sweet vegetable flavour to the tomato base.

The step that matters

Allow the mixture to sit until it begins to set. The aspic must thicken to a syrupy stage before filling the mold. If it is too liquid, the olive and nut meat will float or shift, and if it is too firm it will not pour and will leave layers that do not bond.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, tomato, pepper, gelatin, olive, meat, watercress):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, tomato, pepper, gelatin, olive, meat, watercress. 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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