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Tomato Jelly

A tomato jelly made with tomatoes, cinnamon, onion, bay leaf, vinegar, gelatin, and served with a horseradish cream sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and horseradish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and 515 recipes mention both. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Tomato Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. Cook the tomatoes with cinnamon, onion, bay leaf, vinegar, salt, and pepper until soft.

  2. Strain the mixture.

  3. Dissolve the gelatin in cold water.

  4. Pour the hot tomato mixture over the dissolved gelatin.

  5. Pour into molds and cool.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, mix grated horseradish, whipped cream, vinegar, salt, and cayenne to taste.

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. Cinnamon + horseradishtop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together515 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Onion + horseradishtop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Gelatin + creamtop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together17,923 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned 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

Tomatoes
Provide the main body and flavor of the jelly.
Gelatin
Sets the tomato liquid into a firm, sliceable jelly.
Whipped cream
Adds richness and a soft, creamy texture to the sauce.
Horseradish
Adds sharp heat that contrasts with the sweet tomato.

The step that matters

Pour the hot tomato mixture over the dissolved gelatin. Gelatin must be fully dissolved and the tomato mixture hot enough to melt it evenly; otherwise lumps or uneven setting can result in the finished jelly.

Flavor stand-ins for the cinnamon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, onion, vinegar, pepper, gelatin, horseradish, cream):

  1. Garlicbetter flavor fit
  2. Tarragonbetter flavor fit
  3. Celerybetter flavor fit
  4. Cinnamonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, onion, vinegar, pepper, gelatin, horseradish, cream. 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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