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Aspic Jelly

Aspic jelly made from gelatinized celery, bay leaf, peppercorns, tarragon vinegar, lemon rind, stock, egg white, and egg shells.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Tarragon and lemon 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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the gelatin in cold water.

  2. Chop the celery and place it in a saucepan.

  3. Add the bay leaf, the crushed peppercorns, the tarragon vinegar and the lemon rind.

  4. Pour in the cold water.

Make the aspic

  1. Bring to a boil.

  2. Simmer for 15-20 minutes.

  3. Strain the mixture over the dissolved gelatin.

  4. Return to the saucepan.

  5. Add the stock and the egg white.

  6. Beat well until clear.

Strain and set

  1. Strain through a fine cloth dipped in hot water.

  2. Allow to cool and set before cutting into shapes.

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. Tarragon + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Celery + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Celery + vinegartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,627 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Leaf gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm, wobbly jelly as it cools.
Egg white
Gathers impurities as it heats so the aspic can be clarified to a clear liquid.
Stock
Adds savoury flavour to the clear jelly.

The step that matters

Beat well until clear. The egg white must be beaten into the hot liquid and brought to the boil so it coagulates and traps cloudy particles. Stopping early leaves the aspic cloudy; the egg white must then be allowed to settle before straining.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Dillfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Celerythe original

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