Skip to main content
Dessert

Gravies and Sauces

A gelatinous dessert made from egg whites, wine, and optional isinglass, flavored and colored as desired.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Saffron and spinach match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 149 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Gravies and Sauces

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. Beat the egg whites and shells together with the Sherry or Madeira.

  2. Whisk the mixture until it begins to boil.

  3. Remove from heat and let it simmer for 15 minutes.

  4. Strain through a jelly bag, pouring the strained liquid back into the bag until clear.

Set and flavor

  1. For a stiffer jelly, add Isinglass when adding the wine.

  2. Flavor and color as desired.

  3. Pour the jelly into molds and refrigerate until firm; use ice if the weather is warm.

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. Saffron + spinachtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together149 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Sherry + saffrontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together37 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  3. Sherry + spinachtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  4. Egg + spinachtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,323 recipes

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

  5. Egg + sherrytop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,324 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

Egg whites
Their proteins coagulate when heated, clarifying the liquid and trapping impurities for a clear jelly.
Sherry or madeira
Provides the liquid base and the characteristic wine flavor of the jelly.
Isinglass
A gelatin-like setting agent that firms the jelly for a stiffer set.

The step that matters

Straining through the jelly bag until clear. Straining must be repeated until the liquid runs clear, because any leftover egg white particles cloud the jelly. Keeping the mixture from boiling hard also helps the coagulated solids stay trapped in the raft rather than breaking up.

Swap the saffron

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Saffronthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sherry, spinach. 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.

You might also like

Spinach CreamSpinach Cream9 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipes