Why it works: Madeira wine and brandy work together. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 120 recipes. The science ↓
Madeira Wine Jelly
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Prepare 1 quart of clarified calf's foot jelly.
Make the jelly
Add ½ pint of Madeira wine and ⅓ cup of brandy to the jelly.
To maintain firmness, stir in ½ ounce of clarified isinglass.
Allow the mixture to set for one hour.
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.
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Madeira wine + brandytop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together120 recipes
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Calf's foot jelly
- Forms the base gel that gives the dessert its body and set.
- Madeira wine
- Adds aromatic flavour and a subtle sweetness to the jelly.
- Brandy
- Adds alcohol that boosts aroma and flavour depth in the jelly.
- Isinglass
- Adds extra gelatin to help the jelly hold its firmness as it sets.
The step that matters
Stirring in the isinglass. Isinglass is a gelatin-like protein that strengthens the set. It should be fully clarified and stirred in evenly so the jelly sets firm and clear rather than cloudy or weak in patches.
“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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