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Jelly Molds

A chilled chicken jelly molded dish with celery, covered in jelly and garnished with shredded lettuce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Tarragon and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 425 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Jelly Molds

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Mix melted chicken jelly, vinegar, tarragon vinegar, oil, salt, and pepper in a bowl.

  2. Add chopped celery and combine well.

Mold and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a mold and cover with jelly to enclose it completely.

  2. Chill until set, then turn onto a flat dish.

  3. Garnish with a wreath of shredded lettuce.

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. Tarragon + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together425 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Tarragon + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together456 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Tarragon + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken jelly
Sets when chilled, giving the molds their firm, sliceable structure.
Oil
Adds fat and a smooth, rich mouthfeel to the set jelly.
Celery
Adds crisp texture that contrasts with the soft, set jelly.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the jelly.

The step that matters

Chill until set. The mold must be fully chilled before turning out, because gelatin-based jelly firms as it cools. Turning it out too early can cause it to collapse or stick to the mold.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, vinegar, tarragon, pepper, celery):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Lettucethe original
  4. Tomatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, vinegar, tarragon, pepper, celery. 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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