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Chicken Jelly

A chilled gelatin made from chicken consommé, lemon, cayenne, salt, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Chicken Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the consommé

  1. Let the chicken consommé cool and remove all fat.

  2. Add the lemon rind and juice, cayenne, salt, and the whites and crushed shells of the eggs to the consommé.

  3. Beat the egg whites just enough to mix them.

  4. Combine all ingredients well.

Clarify and set

  1. Heat the mixture slowly.

  2. Bring it to a brisk boil for 10 minutes.

  3. Set it aside on the hearth for 5 minutes to settle.

  4. Pour it through a jelly bag without squeezing.

  5. Rinse a bowl or mold with cold water.

  6. Pour the jelly in, and set aside to harden.

Alternative if the consommé does not jelly

  1. If the consommé hasn't jellied when cold, boil it down by at least one-third.

  2. Or melt gelatin in a little cold consommé, using 1 box of gelatin for 3 pints of jelly.

  3. Stir the gelatin into the boiling jelly with the egg whites.

  4. Strain as before.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Chicken + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,092 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  4. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

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

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

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

Lemon and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 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 consommé
Forms the base liquid that sets into the clear jelly once cooled.
Eggs
Egg whites and shells collect cloudy particles during boiling, clarifying the jelly.
Lemon
Adds bright acidity that balances the rich consommé flavour.
Gelatin (in the method)
Provides the setting structure so the jelly holds its shape when cold.

The step that matters

Bring it to a brisk boil for 10 minutes. Boiling with the egg whites lets them coagulate and trap impurities, clarifying the jelly. Pouring through the bag without squeezing keeps the strained liquid clear.

“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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