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Aspic Jelly for Salads

Aspic jelly made from stock, gelatin, egg white, spices, and optional vegetables, set in molds and refrigerated.

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 for Salads

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. Soak the gelatine in cold water until dissolved.

  2. Combine the gelatine with the beaten egg white and a little of the cold stock.

  3. Add cloves, onion, peppercorns, celery, and salt to taste.

  4. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes.

  5. Strain through a fine cloth into a large mold or several small molds.

Set and serve

  1. Before it hardens, add asparagus tips or cooked cauliflower if desired.

  2. Refrigerate until set.

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
Forms the gel that sets the stock into a firm, sliceable jelly.
Egg white
Its proteins bind with impurities and collect them, so the stock comes out clear.
Clear stock
Supplies the flavour and liquid base that the gelatine sets.

The step that matters

Simmering the stock with egg white. The egg white must be whisked into the cold stock and brought to a gentle simmer without stirring hard, so it rises and traps sediment. Boiling vigorously breaks up the foam and leaves the jelly 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.

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