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Tomato Jelly

A chilled tomato jelly served on lettuce leaves with mayonnaise.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 372 recipes mention both. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Tomato Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. Strain and season the can of tomatoes.

  2. Dissolve the gelatine and mix it with the tomatoes.

  3. Use chicken or meat stock with gelatine.

  4. Add chicken or meat dice.

  5. Incorporate cucumber pickles, capers, and celery into the jelly.

  6. Mold the mixture in individual molds or one large mold.

Garnish and serve

  1. Mix finely minced cooked green peppers into mayonnaise to make green mayonnaise.

  2. Scoop out chilled tomatoes and fill them with the stiffened jelly using a teaspoon.

  3. Pipe green mayonnaise around the edge.

  4. Fill the center with yellow mayonnaise.

  5. Serve on lettuce leaves with a spoonful of mayonnaise on top.

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. Lettuce + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together372 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Lettuce + cucumbertop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,409 recipes

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

  3. Cucumber + caperstop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together303 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Tomato + cucumbertop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together2,405 recipes

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

  5. Lettuce + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Sets the tomato mixture into a firm jelly that holds its shape when molded.
Tomatoes
Provide the main flavour and liquid base of the jelly.
Mayonnaise
Adds richness and a creamy contrast to the tart tomato jelly.

The step that matters

Dissolve the gelatine and mix it with the tomatoes. Gelatine must be fully dissolved before mixing, or lumps and grainy texture will remain. The mixture should be cooled but still liquid before molding, so it sets evenly as it chills.

Flavor stand-ins for the capers

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, lettuce, chicken, lamb, cucumber, celery, pepper):

  1. Tarragonbetter flavor fit
  2. Cuminbetter flavor fit
  3. Corianderbetter flavor fit
  4. Capersthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, lettuce, chicken, lamb, cucumber, celery, pepper. 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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