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Aspic Jelly

Aspic jelly is a gelatinous dish made from veal marrowbone, hock, and seasonings, chilled until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 456 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Aspic Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Cover the veal marrowbone and hock with 3 quarts of water.

  2. Cook slowly until the meat slips from the bone and the hock is soft.

  3. When partly cooked, add salt, pepper, onion, bay leaf, and celery.

Strain and set

  1. Remove the meat and strain the liquid, which should be about 2 quarts.

  2. Add tarragon vinegar to taste and refrigerate until the next day.

  3. If the jelly is solid enough to cut, it is ready.

  4. If it is too soft, boil the hock longer.

Mold and serve

  1. While lukewarm, mold the jelly with nuts, meats, tomatoes, or cucumbers.

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. Celery + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together456 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + tarragontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Tarragon + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal marrowbone and hock
Releases gelatin as it simmers, which lets the liquid set into a firm jelly.
Water
Extracts gelatin and flavor from the bones and meat during slow cooking.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the jelly.

The step that matters

Judging the set before molding. Gelatin sets as the liquid cools, so the jelly must be checked after chilling. If it is too soft, it will not hold its shape when molded. Boiling the hock longer concentrates the gelatin and improves the set.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, pepper, celery, tarragon, vinegar):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pepper, celery, tarragon, vinegar. 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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