Home › Recipes › Tomato Jelly Salad
Tomato Jelly Salad
3/4 quart tomatoes 2 bay leaves 1 onion 1 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon celery salt 1/4 ounce vegetable gelatin 1/3 cup lemon juice Cook the first five ingredients together till reduced one half. Add the vegetable gelatin, which has been prepared in the usual way and cook until the gelatin is dissolved. Rub through a colander, and add the lemon juice. Pour into molds wet with cold water. When cold, unmold, and serve on lettuce with mayonnaise dressing.
If desired, add to the jelly, before pouring it into the molds, one or two string beans cut into small pieces, two or three olives chopped, and one or two hard-cooked egg yolks chopped.
A tomato aspic set with agar rather than animal gelatin. The one thing to get right is the agar: unlike gelatin, it must actually boil to dissolve, and it sets firm at room temperature.
- "Vegetable gelatin" is agarThis is agar-agar, a seaweed extract sold today as flakes, powder or bars. "Prepared in the usual way" means soaked in cold water until softened, then dissolved by boiling — agar will not dissolve in warm liquid the way gelatin does.
- Quantity of agarA quarter ounce is about 7 g. Once the lemon juice goes in, the mixture to be set is closer to 1 3/4 cups, and 7 g of agar in that volume gives a very stiff, sliceable set. Flakes and powder differ mainly by volume — about a teaspoon of powder to a tablespoon of flakes — so weigh rather than measure by spoon.
- 3/4 quart tomatoesThree cups — either fresh tomatoes chopped with their juice, or a 28 oz can with its liquid. Reduced by half you are left with about 1 1/2 cups.
- Add the lemon juice lastThe recipe is right to hold back the 1/3 cup of lemon juice until after the agar has dissolved. Prolonged boiling in acid weakens agar's set.
- SettingAgar gels at about 100F, so this firms up on the counter within an hour and does not strictly need refrigeration to set. Chill it anyway for flavour and safety. It also sets much more firmly than gelatin — expect a sliceable jelly rather than a wobbling one.
- StrainingRubbing through a colander removes skins and seeds but leaves body. A food mill does the same job faster; a fine sieve gives a clearer jelly but less texture.
- UnmoldingWetting the molds with cold water is the period trick for release, and it works. If the jelly resists, dip the mold in hot water for a few seconds rather than prying at the edges.
- The optional additionsBecause agar sets from around 100F, suspended beans, olives and egg yolk will hold in place with little sinking. Stir them in as the mixture begins to thicken.
- YieldAbout 1 3/4 cups of jelly once the lemon juice is in — four small molded salads, or six as part of a larger plate.
Tomato jelly salads were common in American cookery from the 1890s through the 1930s, when the molded salad on a lettuce leaf was a familiar "dainty" first course. What marks this version is the vegetable gelatin: agar-agar, extracted from red seaweed and long used in East Asian cookery (as kanten), which appealed to Western health-reform and vegetarian kitchens as an alternative to calf's-foot and packaged animal gelatin. Books in the American health-food tradition of this era often substituted it, and the substitution changes the dish — agar sets firmer and at a higher temperature, so aspics of this type slice cleanly and hold their shape off the ice.