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Aspic Jelly From French Gelatine

Aspic jelly made by simmering calves' feet, adding lemon, egg whites, vinegar, and sherry, then chilling to set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,137 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Aspic Jelly From French Gelatine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Chop the calves' feet into eight pieces and wash them in cold water.

  2. Place the feet in a stewpan with enough cold water to cover them and bring to a boil.

  3. Pour off the water, wash the feet again, and return them to the cleaned stewpan with 2 quarts of water. Bring to a boil.

  4. Skim occasionally. Add ½ teaspoon salt.

  5. Add the other ingredients except lemon, eggs, and vinegars. Let it boil gently for 5 hours.

  6. Strain through a fine sieve into a basin. Let it cool.

  7. Remove the fat. Wipe the top of the stock with a cloth dipped in hot water.

Clarify and season

  1. Return the stock to a clean stewpan.

  2. Add lemon peel and juice.

  3. Add whipped egg whites and shells.

  4. Add vinegars.

  5. Add salt to taste.

  6. Whisk over heat until boiling.

  7. Let it stand off the heat for 30 minutes to form a crust.

  8. Pour the contents through a clean soup cloth into a basin.

  9. Allow it to pass through slowly a second time.

Mold and serve

  1. Scald a mold with boiling water. Rinse with cold water.

  2. Garnish with fish or vegetables.

  3. Pour the jelly into the mold.

  4. Let it stand until cold.

  5. Turn out and serve.

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 + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

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

  2. Vinegar + tarragontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sherry + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together660 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  4. Sherry + malttop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  5. Lemon + sherrytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,273 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Calves' feet
Release gelatin into the stock, which sets the jelly when cooled.
Egg whites
Collect impurities as they cook, clarifying the stock into a clear jelly.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and helps the jelly taste clean.
Sherry
Adds aroma and depth of flavour to the stock.
Malt vinegar
Adds acidity and sharp flavour to the finished jelly.

The step that matters

Clarifying with egg whites. Whisking the stock until boiling lets the egg whites bind impurities into a crust. Boiling too hard or skipping the slow second straining leaves the jelly cloudy.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sherry, malt, vinegar, tarragon):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Cherryfits about as well
  3. Vanillafits about as well
  4. Applefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sherry, malt, vinegar, tarragon. 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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