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Dessert

Isinglass Blancmange

A gelatinous dessert made from isinglass, egg whites, sugar, and almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,679 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

Isinglass Blancmange

Ingredients

Directions

Make the blancmange

  1. Boil isinglass in water until reduced to 1 pint.

  2. Add egg whites and 2 tablespoons of water to prevent poaching.

  3. Sweeten with sugar to taste and strain through a jelly bag.

  4. Scald sweet and bitter almonds in the mixture, then strain through a fine sieve.

Set and serve

  1. Pour into a china bowl and refrigerate overnight.

  2. The next day, unmold and garnish with blanched, lengthwise-cut sweet almonds.

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. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  2. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  3. Egg + almondtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Isinglass
Gelatin-like protein that dissolves on boiling and sets as the mixture cools, giving the blancmange its structure.
Egg whites
Add body and a light, aerated texture to the mixture as it is combined and strained.
Sweet almonds
Flavour the blancmange with a mild almond taste and provide the garnish.
Bitter almonds
Add a stronger, aromatic almond flavour to the mixture.

The step that matters

Add egg whites and water before boiling. The added water and egg whites help prevent the mixture from poaching, which would curdle or toughen the egg whites and leave the set blancmange cloudy and uneven.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Pecansfits about as well
  2. Almondthe original
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Milletfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar. 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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