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Clear Jelly

A clear gelatinous stock made from calf's feet, wine, lemon, sugar, egg whites, cinnamon, and isinglass.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,950 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Clear Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Cut the calves' feet into pieces and place them in a saucepan with 3 quarts of water.

  2. Boil until reduced to 3 pints, then strain through a sieve into a bowl.

  3. Remove the fat and let it sit overnight to form stock.

Clarify and finish

  1. In a saucepan, combine the stock with 1½ pints of white wine, lemon juice, lemon peel, sugar, and egg whites beaten to a strong froth.

  2. Add a little cinnamon and the egg whites, stirring well.

  3. If using for molds, add 1 ounce of isinglass before heating.

  4. Heat the mixture, removing it from the heat as it rises, then strain through a flannel bag.

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. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. White wine + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  4. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Calves' feet
Release gelatin into the water, which sets the finished stock into a clear jelly.
Egg whites
Form a foam that rises through the stock and traps impurities, clarifying it.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and helps keep the stock clear.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity of the lemon and wine.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the stock.

The step that matters

Heat the mixture, removing it from the heat as it rises. Egg whites form a foam that lifts impurities to the surface. If the mixture boils hard or is left on the heat, the foam mixes back in and the jelly turns cloudy. Lifting it off as it rises keeps the stock clear.

Swap the cinnamon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (white wine, lemon, sugar, egg):

  1. Tarragonfits about as well
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Cinnamonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against white wine, lemon, sugar, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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