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Aspic Jelly

Aspic is a savory gelatin made from stock, vegetables, and gelatin, set with egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Aspic Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the clarifying base

  1. In a saucepan, combine the carrot, onion, celery, parsley, cloves, peppercorns, bay leaf, and ⅞ cup of white wine vinegar, reserving 2 tablespoons of vinegar.

  2. Cook the mixture for 8 minutes, then strain and reserve the liquid.

Make the aspic

  1. Add the gelatin to the stock, then stir in the lemon juice.

  2. Heat the mixture to boiling, then add the strained liquid and season with salt and cayenne.

  3. Beat the egg whites slightly, then mix in the reserved 2 tablespoons of vinegar and dilute with 1 cup of the hot mixture, stirring constantly until it reaches boiling.

  4. Remove from heat and let it stand for 30 minutes.

  5. Strain through a double cheesecloth over a fine wire strainer or a jelly bag.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Coagulate as they heat, collecting impurities and clearing the aspic liquid.
Gelatin
Sets the stock into a firm, sliceable jelly when chilled.
White wine vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens flavor and helps the egg whites clarify.
White stock
Provides the savory liquid base that becomes the set aspic.

The step that matters

Adding the egg whites to the hot mixture. Stirring constantly until the mixture reaches boiling lets the egg whites coagulate and trap cloudy particles. If they are not stirred, they can set in lumps or scramble, and the aspic stays cloudy and harder to clarify.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, celery, parsley, clove, white wine, vinegar, gelatin):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, celery, parsley, clove, white wine, vinegar, gelatin. 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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