Skip to main content
Main

Meat Jelly

A savory gelatin made from veal, beef, chicken, and bone stock set with isinglass and sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Beef and chicken match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,148 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Meat Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and cook the meat

  1. Cut the veal, beef, and chicken into small pieces.

  2. Add 1 cup of water and salt to taste to the meat.

  3. Place the pot near the fire and cook for about 2 hours.

Make the stock

  1. In another saucepan, combine the chicken bones and veal bone with 2 cups of water and a little salt.

  2. Boil gently for about 4 hours.

  3. Strain the liquid from both saucepans into one.

Clarify, set and serve

  1. Add the isinglass dissolved in a little water.

  2. Strain the mixture 3 or 4 times through coarse muslin until clear.

  3. Add the sherry and pour into a mold.

  4. Let it stand in a cool place until set.

  5. Turn it out and serve.

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. Beef + chickentop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,148 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  2. Veal + beeftop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  3. Veal + chickentop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,243 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-butanedione (buttery, creamy).

  4. Chicken + sherrytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together891 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  5. Beef + sherrytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together871 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Lean veal
Provides meat flavor and protein that adds body to the stock.
Small veal bone
Its collagen releases gelatin into the stock, helping the finished jelly hold its shape.
Lean beef
Contributes savory meat flavor to the stock as it cooks.
Small chicken
Adds meat flavor and body to the stock.
Isinglass
A fish-derived gelatin that sets the strained liquid into a firm jelly.
Sherry
Adds aroma and a layer of flavor to the finished jelly.

The step that matters

Straining until clear. Fine particles and proteins left in the liquid make the jelly cloudy and dull. Repeated straining through fine muslin removes them, giving a clear, bright set.

“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 meat jelly recipes

Savory 11Cold 3Soup 3 See all 54 →

You might also like

Beef, Mutton, or Veal BrothBeef, Mutton, or Veal Broth6 recipesChicken BrothChicken Broth257 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipes