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Meat, Swedish Jelly

A gelatinous aspic made from veal shank, vegetables, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Meat, Swedish Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Cover the veal shank with water in a pot.

  2. Add the onion, carrot, celery, salt, and pepper.

  3. Cook until the meat falls off the bone.

Set the aspic

  1. Remove the meat and finely chop it.

  2. Strain the cooking liquid and boil it until reduced to 1 pint.

  3. Wet a mold and pour in the mixture.

  4. Set in a cool place to stiffen.

  5. Turn out and garnish as desired.

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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 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

Veal shank
Breaks down during long simmering, releasing gelatin that lets the broth set into aspic.
Water
Extracts flavor and gelatin from the meat and vegetables to form the cooking liquid.
Onion
Adds savory aromatic depth to the cooking liquid.
Carrot
Adds subtle sweetness and aroma to the cooking liquid.
Celery
Adds aromatic, savory flavor to the cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Boil the strained liquid until reduced to 1 pint. Reducing concentrates the flavor and gelatin so the liquid will set firmly when cooled. Too little reduction leaves the aspic weak and soft.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, carrot, celery, pepper):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, carrot, celery, pepper. 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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