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Aspic Jelly

Aspic is a gelatinous meat stock made by simmering ox-foot, bacon, fowl, and vegetables, then clarified and set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Tarragon and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,547 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Aspic Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Put the ox-foot, bacon bone, raw meat, fowl, and mixed vegetables into a stew-pan.

  2. Add 1 cup of cold water and 1 teaspoon of Brand's essence.

  3. Cover the pan and heat, shaking occasionally.

  4. When the meat begins to color, add more water to cover the contents completely.

  5. Stir in 1 teaspoon of caramel and let simmer gently for 3 hours.

Clarify and season

  1. Strain the liquid into a bowl and let it cool.

  2. Skim off the fat, then add 1 teaspoon of sugar and 1 tablespoon of tarragon vinegar.

  3. Clarify the mixture and strain it through a clean cloth.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Ham + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Ham + vinegartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-methylbutanol (malty, whiskey).

  5. Meat + tarragontop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together184 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Ox-foot
Releases gelatin into the liquid, which lets the stock set into an aspic.
Fowl
Adds meaty flavor and body to the stock as it simmers.
Bacon bone
Adds smoky, savory flavor to the stock.
Brand's essence
Concentrates meaty flavor in the stock.

The step that matters

Clarify and strain the liquid. Cooled stock must be skimmed of fat and strained through a clean cloth to remove particles. Fat and solids left behind would cloud the aspic and interfere with its clear, firm set.

Swap the tarragon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, meat, sugar, vinegar):

  1. Clovefits about as well
  2. Cinnamonfits about as well
  3. Allspicefits about as well
  4. Tarragonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, meat, sugar, vinegar. 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.

More aspic recipes

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