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Aspic Jelly

Aspic jelly is a gelatinous meat stock made from boiled chicken bones, herbs, and spices, set with gelatin.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Aspic Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Remove bones from boiled chickens and return them to the soup kettle.

  2. Simmer for 1 hour.

  3. Add 1 quart of jellied stock.

  4. Before removing from heat, add salt, pepper, celery seed, allspice berry, clove, and sweet herbs.

  5. Strain the liquid and add juice of 1 lemon for each quart of stock.

  6. If the liquid is not clear, add the egg white before the lemon juice and strain again.

Set and serve

  1. Pour into shallow pans, no more than ½ inch deep, and refrigerate for 24 hours.

  2. Cut into small cubes and arrange on a low glass dish.

  3. For color, mix part of the liquid with fruit coloring or caramel before arranging.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  3. Celery + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 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

Jellied stock
Its natural gelatine body is what allows the liquid to set into a firm aspic.
Egg white
As it cooks and coagulates it traps cloudy particles, clarifying the stock.
Lemon juice
Its acidity brightens the flavor and helps keep the clear stock fresh-tasting.

The step that matters

Straining a clear liquid before setting. Any fat or cloudy particles left in the stock will show in the finished aspic. Straining, and clarifying with egg white when the liquid is cloudy, gives a clear, firm set once chilled.

Swap the berry

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, pepper, celery, allspice, clove, lemon, egg):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. Berrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pepper, celery, allspice, clove, lemon, 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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