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Orange, Isinglass Jelly

A clear orange jelly made with isinglass, sugar, and citrus juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon 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 ↓

Orange, Isinglass Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the flavouring

  1. Pare the rinds of 3 oranges, the lemon, and the Seville orange very thinly.

  2. Pour ¼ pint of boiling water over the peel and let it infuse for 30 minutes.

  3. Squeeze the juice from the fruit and strain it carefully.

Make the jelly

  1. Dissolve 1 ounce of isinglass in ¾ pint of water.

  2. Mix the strained liquid with the dissolved isinglass and ¼ pound of loaf sugar.

  3. Stir over low heat, skimming until just before boiling.

  4. Add the strained juice, stir, and skim again.

  5. Remove from heat for 2-3 minutes and strain through a tamis until clear.

Set

  1. Pour the jelly into a damp mold and refrigerate until set.

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + saffrontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together538 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Orange + saffrontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together185 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  5. Orange + whiskytop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together187 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

Isinglass or gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm jelly as it cools.
Oranges
Provide the main citrus flavour and acidity in the jelly.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the jelly its body.

The step that matters

Skimming and straining until clear. Skimming removes foam and particles as the liquid heats, and straining through a tamis removes fine solids. Together they give a clear, bright jelly; skipping them leaves it cloudy.

Swap the saffron

The recipe marks saffron as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (orange, lemon, sugar, whisky):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Gingerfits better
  3. Peppermintfits about as well
  4. Saffronthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against orange, lemon, sugar, whisky. 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.

More orange jelly recipes

Seville 17Cake 13Florida 8Baskets 8Lemon 4China 3 See all 328 →

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