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Aspic Jelly

A gelatinous stock made from carrot, celery, and spices, set with gelatin and flavored with lemon, vinegar, and tarragon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Aspic Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Combine carrot, celery, cloves, pepper, salt, bay leaf, sweet herbs, and water in a saucepan.

  2. Simmer for 2 hours until reduced to 2 pints.

  3. Strain the mixture.

  4. Let it cool.

Clarify and set

  1. Add gelatin to 1 pint of the cold liquor.

  2. Let it stand for 2 hours.

  3. Heat the remaining pint of water to boiling.

  4. Add the boiling water to the gelatin mixture along with lemon peel, lemon juice, mild vinegar, and tarragon vinegar.

  5. Stir in the beaten egg whites.

  6. Bring the mixture just to boiling point.

  7. Remove from heat.

  8. Let it sit on a hot plate (not boiling) for 3 minutes.

  9. Strain through flannel.

  10. Stir in Liebig extract while hot.

  11. Let it cool until needed.

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

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

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

  4. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Sets the cooled liquid into a firm, wobbly jelly.
Egg whites
Coagulate as they heat and collect impurities, clarifying the liquid to a clear jelly.
Carrot
Adds subtle sweetness and colour to the stock as it simmers.
Celery
Contributes savoury, aromatic flavour to the stock as it simmers.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the clear jelly.

The step that matters

Bring the mixture just to boiling point, then hold off the boil. Egg whites only clarify the liquid if it is heated gently until they set and rise, then left undisturbed. Boiling hard breaks up the foam and cloudies the jelly, and it can also ruin the gelatine's setting power.

Swap the clove

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, celery, pepper, lemon, vinegar, tarragon, 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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