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Tomato and Cucumbeb Aspic

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 Cucumbeb Aspic

Ingredients

Directions

Make the tomato jelly

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

  2. Strain the mixture, measure it, and set aside.

  3. Dissolve 1 tablespoon of gelatin in ½ cup of water and mix it into the tomato mixture.

Mold and set

  1. Rub a mold with a little oil and place thin slices of cucumber inside.

  2. When the tomato jelly is cold, pour it into the mold or attach the cucumber slices with a little dissolved gelatin.

  3. Let it firm up, then turn it out onto a bed of lettuce.

Garnish and serve

  1. Garnish with overlapping cucumber slices and 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

Gelatin
Sets the tomato liquid into a firm jelly that holds its shape when turned out.
Tomato
Provides the main body, flavor, and color of the aspic.
Cucumber
Adds a cool, fresh flavor and a decorative pattern visible inside the jelly.
Oil
Lightly coats the mold so the set aspic releases cleanly.

The step that matters

Let the tomato jelly cool before pouring it into the mold. Gelatin sets only as the liquid cools. Pouring in hot tomato mixture can melt the thin cucumber slices out of place, and it may not set firmly.

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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