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Tomato and Cucumber Aspic

A chilled tomato jelly with cucumber slices, served on lettuce with mayonnaise.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,409 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tomato and Cucumber Aspic

Ingredients

Directions

Make the tomato jelly

  1. Cook down the can of tomato with the onion, salt, pepper, and parsley until smooth.

  2. Strain the mixture.

  3. Measure the strained mixture.

  4. Set it with 1 tablespoon of gelatin for every pint.

Set the aspic

  1. Grease a mold with a little oil.

  2. Place thin slices of cucumber inside the mold.

  3. Once the tomato jelly is cold, slowly pour it into the mold.

  4. Attach the cucumber slices with a little dissolved gelatin.

  5. When firm, turn out the aspic onto a bed of lettuce.

  6. Arrange overlapping cucumber slices around it.

  7. Serve with stiff 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. Cucumber + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,409 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + cucumbertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,405 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,483 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Tomato + lettucetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,655 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

Tomato
Forms the main flavour and body of the aspic.
Gelatin
Sets the tomato liquid into a firm, sliceable jelly.
Cucumber
Adds a cool, crisp texture and fresh contrast to the tomato.
Onion
Adds savoury aroma to the tomato base.

The step that matters

Setting the tomato jelly with gelatin. Gelatin needs the liquid to be cold and properly strained before it sets. Pouring warm or unstrained tomato over the cucumber can leave a cloudy, soft aspic that will not hold its shape when turned out.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, pepper, parsley, gelatin, cucumber, lettuce):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, parsley, gelatin, cucumber, lettuce. 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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