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Vegetable Salad-aspic Jelly

A chilled gelatin set of clear soup stock with vegetables and ham, served on lettuce with dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Vegetable Salad-aspic Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the aspic

  1. Combine soup stock, softened gelatin, ketchup, salt, white pepper, lemon juice, celery salt, and white wine (if using) in a saucepan.

  2. Heat over low heat, stirring until it boils. Let it cook slowly for a few minutes.

  3. Set aside to settle.

  4. Strain through a coarse cloth or sieve.

  5. When partially cold, fill a mold with the mixture.

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Boil the carrot, potato, turnip, beet, and celery knobs until tender.

  2. Cut the boiled vegetables into fancy shapes.

Set and serve

  1. Scatter the vegetables and ham into the jelly.

  2. Refrigerate overnight to harden.

  3. To serve, turn the aspic onto a bed of lettuce leaves.

  4. Surround with salad dressing.

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. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Lemon + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  4. Celery + potatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 recipes

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

  5. Gelatin + ketchuptop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 once chilled.
Soup stock
Forms the clear liquid base that carries the flavor and sets around the vegetables.
Carrot
Adds color and a tender bite inside the set jelly.
Potato
Adds body and a mild starchy bite to the jelly.
Beet
Adds deep color to the jelly.
Ham
Adds savory flavor and meaty texture to the jelly.

The step that matters

Strain before filling the mold. Straining through a fine cloth or sieve removes particles and sediment, so the aspic sets clear and smooth instead of cloudy and gritty.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (gelatin, ketchup, lemon, celery, white wine, carrot, potato):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against gelatin, ketchup, lemon, celery, white wine, carrot, potato. 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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