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Tomato Jelly
Heat to boiling point in agate saucepan 1 cup tomato juice and pulp 2 tablespoons mild vinegar 1 tablespoon gelatin 1/2 tablespoon sugar Bit of bay leaf 1 slice onion 1 tablespoon lemon juice, and leaves from 1 stalk celery. Stir until gelatin is dissolved, strain through fine strainer, and mold in small bread pan that measures about 4 1/2 inches by 8 inches. Cut in 1/2 inch cubes for serving.
A single-cup tomato aspic, meant to be turned out and diced into glittering red cubes for garnishing salad plates. Two things need attention before you start: the pan size and the missing salt.
- Agate saucepanAgateware is enamel-coated steel, specified here because it does not react with acid. Any nonreactive pan does the job; avoid bare aluminum or unlined copper, which will give tomato and vinegar a metallic edge.
- GelatinOne tablespoon of granulated gelatin is close to one standard modern envelope (about ¼ ounce or 7 grams, though an envelope is nearer 2¼ teaspoons than a full tablespoon). Sprinkle it over a few tablespoons of the cold tomato juice and let it swell for five minutes before heating; dumped into hot liquid it clumps.
- SaltThe original lists none, which reads oddly today. If you are using unsalted tomato purée, about ½ teaspoon brings the jelly to life. Commercial tomato juice is already salted, so taste the warm mixture before you strain it.
- Tomato juice and pulpThis means tomatoes cooked down and pressed through a sieve, thicker than the thin bottled juice sold now. Canned crushed tomatoes pushed through a fine strainer are the closest match; bottled juice will give a thinner-bodied, flatter-tasting jelly.
- Don't boil it longBring it just to the boiling point and no further. Prolonged boiling weakens gelatin's setting power and will drive off the delicate bay, celery leaf and onion you are steeping in it.
- ChillingNo time is given. Allow at least four hours in the refrigerator, or overnight, for a jelly firm enough to cut cleanly into cubes. Dip the mold briefly in warm water to release it.
- Yield and servingOne cup makes roughly a cup of cubes, enough to garnish six to eight salad plates. The cubes hold their edges best if cut cold with a thin knife wiped between strokes.
Tomato jelly belongs to the great age of American aspic, roughly 1900 to 1940, when powdered gelatin had become cheap and reliable and the mechanical refrigerator was arriving in middle-class kitchens. Before that, jellies meant simmering calves' feet for hours; once gelatin came in a paper envelope, a cook could produce a clear, quivering, brightly colored dish with almost no labor, and the luncheon table filled up with them. The appeal is plain enough: something made the day before, unmolded at the last minute, and cut into neat cubes that stay cold and look deliberate on the plate. The bay leaf, onion slice and celery leaves are steeped and then strained out, leaving only their aroma behind.