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Fish in Jelly

A gelatin set dish of filleted fish with carrot, onion, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,873 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Fish in Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak gelatine in ½ cup water for 1 hour.

  2. Place the filleted fish in a baking dish.

  3. Add grated carrot, onion, sugar, soaked gelatine, vinegar, peppercorns, salt, cloves, and the remaining water.

Cook and strain

  1. Bake for 15 minutes; remove fish and strain the liquid.

Set and serve

  1. Dampen a mold; decorate with hard-boiled egg and parsley.

  2. Arrange pieces of fish in the mold; add strained liquid.

  3. Place the mold on ice; turn out when set.

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  3. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  4. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Forms the main body of the aspic and sets into tender flakes within the jelly.
Gelatine
Sets the cooking liquid into a firm jelly that holds the fish together when turned out.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the richness of the fish and the savoury liquid.
Onion
Contributes savoury aroma and flavour to the cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Strain the liquid well before setting. Gelatine sets clear only when the liquid is free of solids; any bits left in the strained liquid cloud the jelly and can make it uneven.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, carrot, sugar, vinegar, clove):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, carrot, sugar, vinegar, clove. 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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