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Economical Aspic Jelly

A gelatinous savory dish made from stock, herbs, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,374 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Economical Aspic Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Combine the white stock, shallots, bay leaf, fine herbs, and gelatine in a stewpan.

  2. Heat the mixture, stirring until the gelatine dissolves.

  3. Remove the stewpan from heat and let the mixture cool.

Clarify

  1. Whip the egg whites.

  2. Mix the egg whites with the cold water and vinegar.

  3. Combine the egg white mixture with the jelly.

  4. Return the stewpan to the heat.

  5. Bring the mixture to a boil and maintain for 10 minutes.

  6. Strain through a jelly bag or napkin.

Set

  1. Pour the strained mixture into a border mould or shallow dish to cool.

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. Shallot + vinegartop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Veal + shallottop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together920 recipes

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

  3. Shallot + eggtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,380 recipes

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

  4. Veal + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,845 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + vinegartop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and vinegar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,922 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm, sliceable jelly as it cools.
Egg whites
Collect impurities during heating, clarifying the stock into a clear jelly.
White stock
Provides the main liquid and savoury flavour of the aspic.

The step that matters

Bringing the mixture to a boil. Boiling the egg white mixture lets the whites coagulate and trap cloudy particles, which then strain out. Stirring or boiling too vigorously before straining can break up the raft, leaving the aspic cloudy.

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, egg, vinegar):

  1. Cucumberfits about as well
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Shallotthe original
  4. Asparagusfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, egg, vinegar. 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.

More aspic recipes

Chicken 77Meat 26Tomato 25Jelly 16Lobster 14Beef 10 See all 167 →

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