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Meat Jellies Without Gelatin

A chilled beef jelly made with lemon juice, spices, and optional egg whites, set without gelatin.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 44,316 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓

Meat Jellies Without Gelatin

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the beef finely and place it in a jar with a lid.

  2. Cool the jar in a stoppered bottle.

Make the jelly

  1. Beat and stir constantly until the mixture reaches a temperature not over 60°F (15°C).

  2. Add lemon juice and spices.

  3. Boil the mixture together for three minutes.

Clear and finish

  1. Clear some of the mixture into a cup.

  2. Dash the cleared mixture back into the pot.

  3. Omit the egg whites if preferred.

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

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

  2. Beef + lemontop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,278 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Beef + eggtop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

Lemon and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 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

Beef
Its proteins form the body of the jelly and set it as it cools.
Egg whites
Optional; they collect fine particles so the broth becomes clearer.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and helps the broth clear.
Spices
Add aroma and flavor to the finished jelly.

The step that matters

Beat and stir constantly while the mixture heats. Constant stirring keeps the meat from sticking and scorching, and keeping the temperature below the stated limit stops proteins from setting into cloudy particles, so the jelly stays clear.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, egg):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Pumpkinfits about as well
  4. Avocadofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, 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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