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A Strengthening Jelly for Invalids

A medicinal jelly made with isinglass, gum arabic, port wine, sugar, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

A Strengthening Jelly for Invalids

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the isinglass and gum arabic in a little water until soft.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the soaked isinglass, gum arabic, and port wine.

Make the jelly

  1. Heat gently until the isinglass and gum arabic dissolve completely.

  2. Sweeten with sugar-candy or loaf sugar to taste and add cinnamon for flavor, stirring well.

  3. Pour into a mold and refrigerate until 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. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Port wine + cinnamontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together241 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Port wine + sugartop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together805 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Isinglass
Fish-derived gelatin that sets the port wine into a firm, wobbly jelly.
Gum arabic
Adds body and helps keep the jelly smooth and stable as it sets.
Port wine
Supplies the liquid base and its own sweetness and flavour to the jelly.

The step that matters

Heat gently until fully dissolved. Isinglass and gum arabic must dissolve completely without boiling. Overheating can weaken the gelling power of isinglass and leave the jelly grainy or weak once chilled.

“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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