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Aspic Jelly

Aspic jelly is a gelatinous meat stock made from beef and veal, aromatics, and set with egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Aspic Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Boil the beef and veal with the onion, carrot or celery, and bay leaves for 3 hours.

  2. Increase the heat and boil for another 2 hours until the meat is off the bones.

  3. Strain the mixture into a large bowl and let it sit overnight.

  4. Remove the fat.

  5. If not stiff, return to the pot and boil for another hour.

Clarify and finish

  1. Add salt, pepper, cayenne, ketchup, and sherry.

  2. Whisk the egg whites lightly and stir them into the stock, which must not be hot.

  3. Add a few drops of caramel for color.

  4. Bring to a boil until the egg appears broken.

  5. Strain through a flannel bag.

  6. If not clear, strain again.

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. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  2. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  5. Beef + carrottop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,606 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef shank
Breaks down during long boiling to give the stock body and gelatin.
Veal shank and knuckle
Adds collagen that gels as the stock cools, giving the aspic its firm set.
Egg whites
Trap cloudy particles as they coagulate, so straining leaves the stock clear.
Sherry
Adds aroma and a mild acidity that rounds out the savory stock.

The step that matters

Stirring egg whites into the stock. The stock must be cool, or the whites will cook early and fail to collect the cloudiness. Whisking them lightly keeps them evenly dispersed so they can bind the impurities when the stock is brought to a boil and strained.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, veal, carrot, pepper, ketchup, sherry, egg):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, veal, carrot, pepper, ketchup, sherry, 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.

More aspic recipes

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

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