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Dessert

Hartshorn Jelly

A gelatin made by boiling hartshorn shavings with water, sweet wine, lemon, orange peel, 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: Lemon and orange 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 reduced by half.

  2. Strain and let it cool.

  3. Melt the mixture again and add lemon and orange peel.

  4. Skim well, then add sweet wine, lemon juice, and sugar.

  5. Beat the egg whites and stir them in.

Clear and set

  1. Boil briefly, then pour into a jelly bag to clear.

  2. Hang the bag to let the jelly run through until clear.

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 + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

  2. Wine + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Wine + orangetop 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
Provide gelatin that sets the liquid into a firm jelly as it cools.
Egg whites
Foam and then coagulate during boiling, trapping impurities so the jelly can be clarified.
Fine sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the set jelly its body.
Sweet wine
Adds flavour and a little acidity to the jelly.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and bright flavour that balances the sugar.

The step that matters

Hanging the bag to clear. The jelly must drip through the bag without squeezing, since pressing forces cloudy particles through and makes the jelly hazy. Patience lets the clear liquid separate from the coagulated egg white and sediment.

“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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