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Chicken Jelly

A gelatinous dish made by simmering a whole chicken with salt and pepper until the meat falls off, then cooling the broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Chicken Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Place the chicken joints in a pan or stew-jar.

  2. Add salt, peppercorn, and enough water to just cover the chicken.

Stew and strain

  1. Stew gently for 2 to 3 hours, adding water if needed.

  2. Once the meat falls from the bones, remove the meat and pound the bones.

  3. Boil the bones again for extra flavor.

  4. Strain the liquid from the meat and bones.

  5. Let the liquid cool and remove any fat that forms on top.

Serve

  1. Serve the jelly cold or warmed up.

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Its bones and meat release gelatin and flavor into the water as it stews.
Water
Acts as the cooking liquid that extracts collagen and flavor from the chicken.

The step that matters

Stewing gently. Gentle heat slowly draws collagen out of the bones and connective tissue without making the liquid cloudy or greasy. A hard boil can break up the proteins and emulsify fat into the broth, leaving a weaker, murkier jelly that may not set well.

“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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