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Aspic

Aspic is a chilled meat stock set with gelatin, made from fowl, beef, veal, and vegetables.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Aspic

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Place the chicken, beef, and veal in a pot and cover with cold water.

  2. Simmer for 5 to 6 hours with the pot covered.

  3. An hour before finishing, add the diced carrot, cloves, and bay leaf.

  4. Fry the onions and celery in butter until dark brown.

  5. Add the browned onions and celery to the stock.

  6. Remove the pot from heat.

Finish and set

  1. Strain the stock.

  2. Add the soaked gelatin and sherry or Madeira to the strained stock.

  3. Stir until the gelatin is dissolved.

  4. Set the aspic aside until the next day.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Celery + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Sets the strained stock into a firm, sliceable jelly as it cools.
Beef shin and veal knuckle
Release collagen and flavour into the stock during long simmering, giving body and richness.
Fowl
Adds savoury poultry flavour and gelatin-rich body to the stock.
Sherry or madeira
Adds aromatic depth and a subtle sweetness to the finished jelly.

The step that matters

Stir until the gelatin is dissolved. Undissolved gelatin leaves grainy specks and weak set, so the hot stock must be fully stirred before it cools and sets.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, beef, carrot, veal, celery, turnip, sherry):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, beef, carrot, veal, celery, turnip, sherry. 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 aspic recipes

Chicken 77Meat 26Tomato 25Jelly 16Lobster 14Beef 10 See all 167 →

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