Why it works: Wine and port wine work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 128 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓
Wine Jelly
makes 1 quart of liquidIngredients
Directions
Prepare
Soak the isinglass in a bowl of water.
Squeeze the lemons, remove the seeds, and chop the peel and pulp into small pieces.
Combine the lemon pieces with 1 pint of water and ⅔ pint of common cooking wine.
Make the jelly
Add port wine or brandy to achieve desired color and fill with water to make 1 quart of liquid.
Pour the mixture into a kettle and sweeten to taste.
Bring to a boil, then add the beaten egg whites.
Boil for a few moments, then strain through a jelly bag.
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.
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Wine + port winetop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together128 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
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Lemon + winetop 13% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together6,157 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together44,316 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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
- Isinglass
- Sets the liquid into a firm jelly as it cools.
- Lemons
- Add acidity and aroma, with the peel contributing fragrant oils.
- Egg whites
- Coagulate when heated and trap cloudy particles so the jelly strains clear.
- Common cooking wine
- Adds the main wine flavor and body to the liquid.
- Port wine or brandy
- Deepens the color and adds richer flavor to the jelly.
- Sugar
- Provides sweetness that balances the lemon's acidity.
The step that matters
Boil the egg whites, then strain through a jelly bag. Egg white proteins coagulate when heated and bind suspended particles into curds. Boiling briefly lets them form, and straining removes them, which gives a clear jelly. Stirring or over-handling can break the curds and cloud the result.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (wine, port wine, sugar, egg):
- Figfits better
- Applefits better
- Plumfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against wine, port wine, sugar, egg. 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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