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Aspic Jelly

Aspic jelly made from simmered vegetables, stock, gelatin, and egg whites, then chilled and set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Aspic Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the flavouring

  1. Combine carrots, celery, onion, parsley, thyme, cloves, savory, bay leaf, and black pepper with white wine in a saucepan. Cook for 8 minutes.

  2. Strain the mixture.

Make the aspic

  1. Heat white stock in another saucepan. Add gelatin and lemon juice. Bring to a boil.

  2. Add the strained liquid. Season with salt and pepper.

  3. Stir in the frothy egg whites and 2 tablespoons of wine. Stir constantly until it boils again.

  4. Let the mixture stand for 30 minutes at the back of the stove.

  5. Strain through a thin jelly bag into molds.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  5. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 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

Egg whites
They foam and then coagulate as the mixture heats, trapping impurities so the liquid clears.
Gelatin
Sets the cooled liquid into a firm, sliceable jelly.
White stock
Forms the liquid base that the aspic sets from.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma from the flavouring vegetables and herbs.

The step that matters

Stir constantly until it boils again. Egg whites must be stirred as they heat so they froth and coagulate evenly instead of setting in clumps. Their trapped particles then clarify the liquid when it is strained through the jelly bag.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, celery, parsley, thyme, clove, pepper, white wine):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, celery, parsley, thyme, clove, pepper, white wine. 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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