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Dessert

Iceland Moss Jelly

A gelatinous dessert made from Iceland moss, sugar, sherry, lemon, and egg white.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sherry and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,273 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Iceland Moss Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the moss

  1. Wash the Iceland moss in warm water and drain it.

  2. Place the moss in a pot with 1 quart of cold water and bring to a boil.

  3. Cover and simmer for 1 hour.

Clarify and strain

  1. Add sugar, sherry, lemon juice, lemon rind, and whisked egg white mixed with ½ cup cold water.

  2. Stir until it boils, then strain through a flannel bag.

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. Sherry + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,273 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + sherrytop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,141 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and lemon 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

Iceland moss
Its gelling compounds set the liquid into a jelly as it cools.
Egg white
As it cooks it collects cloudy particles, helping clarify the jelly.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the sharpness of the lemon and sherry.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the sweetness.

The step that matters

Stir until it boils, then strain through a flannel bag. The egg white must be brought to a full boil with the liquid so it coagulates and traps impurities. Straining too early leaves cloudiness, and the jelly will look murky.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Pineapplefits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, sherry, egg. 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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