Tomato Jelly
1/4 box gelatine. 1/2 cup cold water. Juice from 1 pint tomatoes 1/2 teaspoon onion juice 1 teaspoon sugar 1 bay leaf 1/2 teaspoon chopped parsley Salt and pepper Lettuce Mayonnaise dressing Soak the gelatine in the water for one hour. Bring to a boil the liquor drained from a pint can of tomatoes and add to it the seasoning and herbs. Let this simmer for twenty minutes; add the gelatine; stir until dissolved and strain through a cloth into molds-preferably individual ones. Serve on lettuce leaves with Mayonnaise dressing or use as a garnish for other salads.
A plain tomato aspic of the kind that filled the salad chapter of every American cookbook between about 1900 and 1950. The ingredient list is incomplete — gelatine and water are used in the method but never quantified — so the amounts below are the standard proportions of the period rather than the book's own.
- The missing gelatineThe method says to soak gelatine in water, but neither appears in the list. Period practice for a firm but tender mould is about 1 tablespoon (one envelope, 1/4 oz) of granulated gelatine per 2 cups of liquid, softened in 1/4 cup cold water. Because the amount is genuinely absent from the original, treat this as a reconstruction and not the author's figure.
- YieldA pint can of tomatoes yields perhaps a cup or so of drained liquor, enough for three or four small individual moulds. If you want a full 2 cups of liquid, make up the difference with tomato juice rather than water or the flavour thins out.
- Draining, not juicing"Juice from 1 pint tomatoes" means the liquor poured off a pint can, not tomatoes put through a juicer. Modern cans are often packed thicker, so press the solids in a sieve if you need enough liquid. Bottled tomato juice is an acceptable substitute; it was sold commercially from the late 1920s.
- Onion juiceGrate a peeled onion on the fine side of a box grater and use the liquid that collects, or press grated pulp in a sieve. Half a teaspoon is a seasoning, not a flavour base — chopped onion left in the pot will not read the same.
- Twenty minutes of simmeringThat is a long reduction for a cup of liquid. Simmer gently and covered, or you may lose a fair part of the volume before the gelatine goes in and the jelly will set hard and salty. Check the quantity before adding the gelatine and top up with tomato juice if it has fallen short.
- Add gelatine off the heatStir the softened gelatine in after the pan comes off the burner. Boiling gelatine weakens its set, and there is no reason to expose it to heat once the herbs have done their work.
- StrainingStraining through a cloth is what makes this clear rather than cloudy. Use a doubled square of muslin or a coffee filter, let it drip, and resist pressing the solids through — pressing is what puts the haze back in.
- SettingFour to five hours in the refrigerator, or overnight. To unmould, dip the moulds in warm water for a count of five and invert onto the lettuce.
Tomato jelly belongs to the great American aspic era, which began once granulated gelatine could be bought in packets rather than boiled for hours out of calves' feet. Once the labour vanished, moulded salads spread from the professional kitchen into the ordinary household, and savoury jellies were a common feature of American salad chapters by the time this book was compiled. The recipe is essentially a stripped-down tomato consomme -- bay, parsley, onion, a pinch of sugar to correct the acid -- set firm and served cold, and its function here is as much decorative as culinary: the last line offers it as a garnish for other salads. The clarity was the point. A tomato jelly that came out of the cloth cloudy was a failure of technique, and the insistence on individual moulds suggests a service style in which each diner received a composed plate rather than a portion spooned from a communal dish.