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Fish in Jelly

A dish of fish set in a clear gelatin made from fish or calves' feet, clarified with egg white and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Fish and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,432 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

Fish in Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. Boil down the fish or calves' feet to make jelly.

  2. Clear the jelly with the egg white.

Assemble the mold

  1. Pour a little milk into a mold.

  2. Once the jelly is set, place the prepared fish on top.

  3. Pour more jelly into the mold until filled.

  4. When congealed, wrap a hot cloth around the mold for a short time.

Serve

  1. Turn it out onto a dish and serve for supper or luncheon.

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. Fish + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,432 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  2. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  3. Fish + eggtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,782 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fish or calves' feet
Boiled down to make the jelly, providing gelatin that sets the dish.
Egg white
Clears the jelly as it coagulates and traps cloudy particles for a clearer result.
Milk
Poured into the mold first, forming a pale layer beneath the fish.

The step that matters

Wrap a hot cloth around the mold. Briefly warming the outside of the mold loosens the set jelly from its walls so it can be turned out without tearing or breaking.

“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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