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Dessert

Hartshorn Jelly

A gelatinous dessert made from boiled hartshorn shavings, water, citrus peels, wine, sugar, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Hartshorn Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly base

  1. Boil hartshorn shavings in water until one third of the water evaporates.

  2. Strain the mixture.

  3. Let it cool.

  4. Melt the cooled mixture again.

  5. Add orange and lemon peel for color.

  6. Skim the mixture.

  7. Add wine.

  8. Add lemon juice.

  9. Add sugar.

  10. Adjust sweetness to taste.

  11. Whisk the egg whites.

  12. Stir them into the mixture.

  13. Let it boil briefly.

  14. Adjust lemon juice to taste.

Clarify and test

  1. Pour the mixture into a jelly bag lined with egg whites to clarify.

  2. If the mixture is not clear, pour it back into the bag.

  3. Let it hang near a fire until it runs off.

  4. Test for jelling by cooling a spoonful on the fire.

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Lemon + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Orange + winetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,046 recipes

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

  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).

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Hartshorn shavings
Gelling agent that sets the liquid into a firm jelly when cooled.
Eggs
Whites are whisked in and then used to bind impurities, clarifying the jelly to clear.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and body to the jelly.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the sugar.
Wine
Adds aroma and flavor to the jelly.

The step that matters

Clarifying through the egg-white-lined jelly bag. Egg whites coagulate when heated and trap cloudy particles as the liquid drips through. If the mixture is rushed or not filtered again when cloudy, the jelly stays hazy instead of clear.

“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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