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Chicken Jelly

Chicken jelly is a gelatinous dish made from simmered chicken, bones, water, lemon rind, and gelatin.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Chicken Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Wash the chicken well, cut the meat off the bones, and chop the meat into small pieces.

  2. Chop the bones and remove any fat.

  3. Place the chicken, bones, water, lemon rind, salt, and pepper in a stew jar.

  4. Put the jar in a saucepan with water halfway up the sides and cover it closely.

Make the stock

  1. Cook for 5 to 6 hours.

  2. Strain off the liquid.

  3. Let the liquid cool completely.

  4. Remove any fat.

  5. Pass the liquid through thick muslin to remove sediment.

Set the gelatin

  1. Rewarm the liquid.

  2. Melt the gelatin in it, adding lemon juice and more seasoning if needed.

  3. Pour the liquid into a mold.

  4. Allow to set for 2 to 3 hours until perfectly clear.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Chicken + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Sets the clarified liquid into a firm, sliceable jelly as it cools.
Chicken
Releases its protein and flavour into the water during long, gentle cooking to make the stock.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the savoury jelly.

The step that matters

Cooling and clarifying the liquid. Cooling lets fat rise and solidify so it can be removed, and muslin filtering removes sediment. Skipping these leaves the jelly cloudy and greasy. Gentle heat during cooking also keeps the stock clear rather than boiling it into a murky liquid.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Limefits about as well
  3. Mangofits less well
  4. Grapefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, 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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