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Dessert

Gloucester Jelly

A gelatin dessert made from rice, pearl barley, sago, and gelatin, sweetened with wine and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and barley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 568 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Gloucester Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. Combine rice, pearl barley, sago, and gelatine in a pot with 3 pints of water.

  2. Cook over medium heat until reduced to 2 pints, then strain.

  3. Allow to cool; the mixture will form a strong jelly.

Serve

  1. To serve, dissolve the jelly in warm milk, beef tea, or hot water, and flavor with wine and sugar.

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 their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Rice + barleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together568 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Rice + winetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,223 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Barley + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together755 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Barley + winetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together128 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Rice + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm jelly as it cools.
Sago
Thickens the liquid and adds a soft, starchy body.
Pearl barley
Adds body and thickens the strained liquid as it cooks.
Rice
Adds body and thickens the strained liquid as it cooks.

The step that matters

Reducing to 2 pints before straining. Cooking down concentrates the starches and gelatine so the strained liquid can set firmly as it cools. Too much water left in leaves a weak jelly that will not hold its shape.

“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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