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Jellied Tomatoes

A chilled tomato gelatin served on lettuce with parsley and salad dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,483 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Jellied Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. In a saucepan, combine the tomato juice, sugar, and finely chopped onion. Boil for 10 minutes.

  2. Add the salt and paprika, then strain the mixture through a fine strainer.

  3. Soak the gelatin in 1 tablespoon of cold water, then add it to the hot mixture.

  4. Pour the mixture into small cups that have been rinsed in cold water.

Serve

  1. Once firm, turn out the jellied tomatoes onto shredded lettuce.

  2. Sprinkle with chopped parsley and serve with salad dressing.

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. Lettuce + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,483 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Sugar + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Onion + lettucetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,562 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 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

Strained white tomato juice
Forms the liquid base of the jelly and supplies its tomato flavor.
Gelatin
Sets the hot liquid into a firm jelly as it cools.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the tomato's natural acidity.
Onion
Adds a savory aroma to the tomato base.

The step that matters

Soaking and dissolving the gelatin. Soften the gelatin in cold water first so it hydrates evenly, then stir it into the hot mixture until fully dissolved. Undissolved gelatin leaves gritty specks and weakens the set, because it must melt completely before it can form a gel as the mixture cools.

Swap the onion

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

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

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