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Dessert

Jelly, Russian

A citrus jelly made with lemon, orange, sugar, water, and gelatin.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Jelly, Russian

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

  1. Peel the lemons and orange very thinly and cut them in half crosswise.

  2. Squeeze the juices into an enamelled saucepan.

Make the jelly

  1. Add the peels, cold water, sugar, and soaked gelatine to the saucepan.

  2. Stir over heat until hot but not boiling, then strain through a sieve into a basin.

  3. Allow the mixture to cool, then whisk until frothy.

  4. Pour into a mould and place in a cool place until set.

Serve

  1. Turn 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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

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

  3. Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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
Sets the liquid into a firm, wobbly jelly as it cools.
Sugar
Sweetens the jelly and balances the sharpness of the citrus juice.
Lemons
Provide the main sharp acidity and citrus flavour.
Orange
Adds sweet citrus aroma and flavour alongside the lemon.

The step that matters

Stir over heat until hot but not boiling. Gelatine must dissolve fully without boiling, since strong heat can weaken its setting power and dull the clarity of the jelly.

“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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