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Aspic Jelly

Aspic jelly is a clear gelatinous stock made with beef, chicken or veal stock, gelatine, egg white, spices, and vegetables.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,668 recipes. Both carry gamma-decalactone, which smells peach, creamy. The science ↓

Aspic Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the gelatine in cold water for 2 hours.

Make the aspic

  1. Combine the soaked gelatine with the stock, cloves, onion, peppercorns, celery, and salt.

  2. Beat the egg white with 1 tablespoon of the cold stock and add to the mixture.

  3. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer.

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. Clove + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  2. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Clove + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Beef + celerytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,370 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Sets the stock into a firm jelly once it cools.
Egg white
Gathers impurities as it cooks, clarifying the stock to a clear jelly.
Clear stock
Forms the liquid base that gives the aspic its flavour and colour.

The step that matters

Adding the egg white before heating. The beaten egg white must be stirred in cold so it spreads evenly; as the mixture heats, its proteins coagulate and trap cloudy particles. Bringing it to a boil too quickly or stirring it after it sets can break up the raft and leave the aspic cloudy.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, egg, onion, celery. 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.

More aspic recipes

Chicken 77Meat 26Tomato 25Jelly 16Lobster 14Beef 10 See all 167 →

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