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Tomato Jelly Salad
3 cups stewed tomatoes 1 onion, sliced 1 stalk celery 1 bay leaf 1 clove 1 teaspoon sugar salt 1 envelope gelatine 1/2 cup cold water lettuce mayonnaise Cook tomatoes with seasonings. Soak the gelatine in cold water and add to hot tomatoes. Strain and mold in cups about the size of a tomato. Serve on plates in lettuce cups, slipping the contents of each cup onto the lettuce. Serve with tablespoon of mayonnaise on top of each mold, sprinkling with paprika.
A plain tomato aspic of the sort that carried a luncheon plate in the 1920s and 30s. The whole thing hinges on getting enough gelatine into a fairly large volume of liquid, and on straining it while everything is still hot.
- Stewed tomatoesThree cups is close to the contents of a 28-oz can of whole or crushed tomatoes with their juice, which yields about 3 to 3 1/2 cups. Home-stewed fresh tomatoes work equally well; you want them cooked down soft enough to press through a sieve.
- The gelatine envelopeOne envelope is 1/4 oz, about 2 1/4 teaspoons, and is generally reckoned to set 2 cups of liquid. Here it has to set 3 cups of tomato plus 1/2 cup of soaking water, which gives a very soft jelly that will slump on the plate. Use 1 1/2 to 2 envelopes if you intend to unmold it.
- Order of operationsSoften the gelatine in the cold water for 5 minutes, stir it into the hot tomato until fully dissolved, then strain. Straining after the gelatine goes in catches the onion, celery, bay and clove and any undissolved granules in one pass, but it must be done while the mixture is still hot or it will begin to set in the sieve.
- SeasoningSalt is left to the cook. Taste the strained liquid before molding, seasoning it slightly stronger than you think right, since chilling flattens both salt and the teaspoon of sugar.
- Molds"Cups about the size of a tomato" suggests individual molds of roughly 1/2 to 3/4 cup. Custard cups, small teacups or a muffin tin all work. Rinse them with cold water first so the jelly releases cleanly.
- ChillingAllow at least 4 hours in the refrigerator, or overnight. To turn one out, dip the cup briefly in warm water and run a thin knife around the edge before inverting onto the lettuce.
- YieldMakes 6 to 7 individual molds, enough to serve six at a luncheon.