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Chicken Jelly

A chilled gelatin made from reduced chicken stock, eggshell, egg white, mace, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Chicken Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Reduce chicken stock to 1 pint.

  2. Strain through a cloth.

  3. When cold, stir in crushed eggshell, beaten egg white, mace, salt, and pepper.

  4. Boil without stirring for 5 minutes or until clear.

  5. Strain into a mold rinsed with cold water.

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. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  3. Chicken + eggtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,991 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  4. Chicken + macetop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,208 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

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

Mace and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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

Chicken stock
Its natural gelatin sets into a firm, wobbly aspic when chilled.
Egg white
Its proteins coagulate as it heats, trapping cloudy particles so the liquid clarifies.
Crushed eggshell
Works with the egg white as a fining agent, attracting particles that cloud the stock.

The step that matters

Boil without stirring. Stirring during the boil breaks up the egg white raft before it can trap cloudy particles, leaving the aspic murky. Heat must rise gently so the egg white coagulates and clarifies the stock.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, egg, pepper. 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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