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Jellied Vegetables

A gelatin set of boiled vegetables, sweetened and flavored with vinegar, lemon, and cloves, served chilled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,150 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Jellied Vegetables

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gelatine mixture

  1. Soak the gelatine in cold water.

  2. Dissolve the gelatine in boiling water.

  3. Add sugar, vinegar, lemon juice, salt, and whole cloves.

  4. When nearly cold, strain the mixture.

Set and garnish

  1. Add the green beans and pimentos.

  2. Pour into a mold and set on ice to harden.

  3. Garnish with a border of Malaga grapes.

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. Lemon + clovetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Lemon + green beanstop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together61 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Clove + grapetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Clove + green beanstop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together40 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  5. Vinegar + grapetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,589 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Forms the firm, sliceable gel that holds the vegetables in place.
Green beans
Provide body and a mild vegetable texture within the set gel.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and lemon juice.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the jelly a tart, bright flavour.
Lemon juice
Adds further acidity and fresh citrus flavour to the jelly.

The step that matters

Strain when nearly cold, then add the vegetables. Gelatine begins to set as it cools, so if the mixture is too cold or too thick, the vegetables will not distribute evenly and the gel may set unevenly. Adding the vegetables at the nearly-cold stage keeps them suspended rather than sinking or floating.

Swap the green beans

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Green beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar, lemon, clove, grape. 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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