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Dessert

Gloucester Jelly

A gelatinous dessert made from rice, sago, and pearl barley simmered in water, strained, and served in wine, milk, or broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and barley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 568 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Gloucester Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. Simmer rice, sago, and pearl barley in water until thick.

  2. Strain the mixture when cold.

Serve

  1. Serve dissolved in wine, milk, or broth.

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. Rice + barleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together568 recipes

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

  2. Rice + winetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,223 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Barley + winetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together128 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Its starch thickens the water as it simmers, giving the jelly body.
Sago
Its starch gels as it cooks, helping the mixture set into a jelly.
Pearl barley
Its starch adds thickening and body to the simmered mixture.

The step that matters

Strain the mixture when cold. Straining removes the cooked grains and any lumps so the jelly is smooth. Straining while still hot can be difficult, and the starches set as the mixture cools.

“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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