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Jelly b’Aspic

A savory aspic made from fowl, veal, and various herbs, thickened with egg whites and veal gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Jelly b’Aspic

Oven, in the book's wordsA slack oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Truss the legs of the fowls inward.

  2. Place them in a small stewpan with veal fragments.

  3. Add the boned calves' feet or knuckles of veal, broth, bay leaf, thyme, basil, parsley, and chives.

  4. Simmer on low heat for 4 hours, skimming regularly.

  5. Strain the mixture through a cloth.

Flavour and clarify

  1. Reduce the tarragon vinegar to half.

  2. Mix the reduced vinegar with white pepper, cloves, and mushroom trimmings.

  3. Add the mixture to the jelly.

  4. Beat the egg whites with white wine and veal gravy.

  5. Mix the beaten mixture into the jelly.

  6. Heat the jelly on strong fire, stirring continuously until it boils.

  7. Simmer for 30-40 minutes, placing a lid with heat on top to clarify the jelly.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Thyme + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  3. Thyme + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together528 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Chive + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together589 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Fowls
Contribute body and savoury flavour to the stock that sets into the jelly.
Calves' feet or veal knuckles
Provide natural gelatin so the stock sets firmly when cooled.
Egg whites
Bind and trap solids during boiling, clarifying the jelly to a clear result.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the jelly's flavour.
Veal gravy
Adds concentrated meaty flavour and colour to the clarifying mixture.

The step that matters

Heating the jelly with the egg white mixture. Stirring until it boils and then simmering gently lets the egg whites coagulate and collect impurities. Boiling too vigorously or stirring after the lid is placed can break up the raft, leaving the jelly cloudy.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, thyme, basil, parsley, chive, tarragon, vinegar):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Fennelfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, thyme, basil, parsley, chive, tarragon, vinegar. 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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