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Chicken Aspic From the Stock

A chilled gelatin set made from chicken stock, onions, eggs, olives, and garnished with cucumber and lettuce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,409 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Chicken Aspic From the Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. In a pot, combine the onion pieces with the stock and let it sit or heat to season.

  2. Soak the gelatin in ½ cup of cold water.

  3. Pour the hot strained stock over the soaked gelatin and stir until dissolved.

Set and serve

  1. When the mixture is nearly cold, pour it into a mold.

  2. Add the yolks or pieces of hard boiled eggs and the olive rings to the mold.

  3. Chill until set, then serve garnished with cucumber daisies on lettuce.

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. Cucumber + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,409 recipes

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

  2. Olive + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Olive + cucumbertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  4. Onion + lettucetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,562 recipes

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

  5. Onion + cucumbertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,050 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatin
Sets the stock into a firm, sliceable jelly as it cools.
Steamed stock
Forms the liquid base that gives the aspic its savory flavor.
Hard boiled eggs
Add soft, creamy texture and contrast to the clear jelly.
Stuffed olives
Add salty, briny flavor and visual contrast in the set aspic.

The step that matters

Pour the stock into the mold when nearly cold. If the stock is still hot, it can melt the gelatin's set and let the eggs and olives float or sink. Chilling it until just thickening keeps the garnishes suspended and the jelly firm once chilled.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (gelatin, pepper, egg, olive, cucumber, lettuce):

  1. Beetrootfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against gelatin, pepper, egg, olive, cucumber, lettuce. 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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