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Aspic Jelly

Aspic is a gelatinous meat stock made from calf feet, veal, vegetables, and seasonings, set in the refrigerator.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 24 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,046 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Aspic Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the feet

  1. Cut each calf's foot into four pieces: through the joint and between the hooves, then saw through the long bone.

  2. Blanch the pieces by placing them in cold water and bringing to a boil. Remove and wash thoroughly in cold water.

  3. Clean your saucepan well before proceeding.

Make the stock

  1. Combine all ingredients in the saucepan with enough water to cover. Simmer for about 6 hours to make the stock.

  2. Strain the stock 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. Turnip + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Leek + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together64 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Turnip + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together202 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Calves' feet
Release gelatine into the stock, giving the aspic its characteristic set when chilled.
Knuckle veal
Adds collagen and meaty flavour to the stock, supporting body and gelling.
Egg whites
Help clarify the stock by trapping fine particles that would otherwise cloud it.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the clear stock.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for about 6 hours. A gentle simmer extracts gelatine from the bones and connective tissue without clouding the liquid. A rolling boil emulsifies fats and fine particles into the stock, making it cloudy and harder to clarify.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, egg, carrot, turnip, leek, celery, shallot):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, egg, carrot, turnip, leek, celery, shallot. 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

Chicken 77Meat 26Tomato 25Jelly 16Lobster 14Beef 10 See all 167 →

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