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Mint Jelly

A gelatin dessert flavored with mint leaves, lemon juice, and spinach juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Mint Jelly

Why it works: Lemon and mint are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,998 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Mint Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Dissolve gelatine in boiling water.

  2. Add cold water, lemon juice, sugar, mint leaves, and spinach juice, then stir well until combined.

  3. Pour into a mold and refrigerate until set.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + minttop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,998 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Lemon + spinachtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,109 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Mint + spinachtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together290 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + minttop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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
Forms the gel structure that sets the jelly firm and wobbly when chilled.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the sharpness of the lemon juice.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and sharpens the mint.
Mint leaves
Supplies the main aroma and flavour of the jelly.

The step that matters

Dissolve the gelatine fully in boiling water. Gelatine only sets properly when it is completely dissolved. Undissolved granules leave gritty specks and weak patches, so the gelatine should be stirred until clear before the cold liquids are added.

Swap the spinach

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, sugar, mint):

  1. Cucumberfits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Kalefits about as well
  4. Spinachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, sugar, mint. 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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