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Dessert

Sea Weed Blancmange

A custard dessert made with seaweed, milk, eggs, sugar, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Hamilton, Margaret · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Sea Weed Blancmange

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the seaweed

  1. Wash the seaweed in several waters of Carrigean moss; soak it all night in water.

  2. Squeeze the seaweed, put it into a saucepan with 6 pints of boiling water, and boil for an hour.

  3. Strain the mixture through a jelly bag.

Make the custard

  1. Make a custard of 5 cups milk, 5 dessertspoonfuls sugar, and 10 eggs; flavor with vanilla.

  2. Add 2 cups of the strained jelly; stir until dissolved, and put into moulds.

  3. Clean the calf's foot well, and either stow or bake it in the milk and water with the other ingredients for 3 to 4 hours.

  4. Add an onion and a small quantity of celery to enhance the flavour, if approved; stir in a teacupful of cream just before serving.

Finish the broth and sauce

  1. Boil 2 calf's feet in 3 quarts of water to half; strain, and set aside.

  2. Take off the fat, put a large teacupful of the jelly into a saucepan with half a glassful of sweet wine, a little sugar and nutmeg, and beat it up until it is ready to boil.

  3. Take a little of the broth, beat by degrees to the yolk of an egg, and add a bit of butter the size of a nutmeg; stir it all together, but do not let it boil.

  4. Grate a bit of fresh lemon into it.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

408Calories
15 gProtein
26 gFat
32 gCarbs

Counts 8 of 10 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 8 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Nutmeg1 tsp ground (2.2g)12
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0
Macenot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Hamilton, Margaret. 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. See the original page.

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 + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  4. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Seaweed (in the method)
Its natural gelling compounds set the liquid into a firm jelly as it cools.
Eggs
Their proteins thicken the custard and add richness, but they curdle if overheated.
Milk
Forms the creamy base of the custard and gives the blancmange a soft, smooth texture.
Calf's foot
Releases gelatin during long simmering, helping the jelly set firm.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the mild flavour of the jelly and custard.
Butter
Adds fat that gives the enriched sauce a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Stir the egg yolk into the warm broth without boiling. Egg proteins thicken gently when warm but scramble and curdle if they reach boiling, so the mixture must stay below boiling while it is stirred.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, lemon, pepper, sugar, egg, butter, nutmeg):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, lemon, pepper, sugar, egg, butter, nutmeg. 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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