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Aspic Jelly

Aspic jelly is a gelatinized meat stock made with water, sherry, vinegars, lemon, herbs, spices, gelatin, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 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

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. Combine all ingredients except sherry in a bright saucepan.

  2. Whisk well over moderate heat until nearly boiling.

  3. Remove whisk and boil quickly.

  4. Add sherry and boil gently for 20 minutes.

Strain

  1. Strain the mixture as you would for lemon jelly.

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. Tarragon + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

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

  3. Tarragon + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together456 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

  5. Tarragon + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together463 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 liquid into a firm jelly as it cools.
Eggs (whites)
Whipped whites collect cloudy particles as the liquid heats, clarifying the jelly.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the savoury stock.
Sherry
Adds aroma and a mellow, wine-based flavour to the finished jelly.

The step that matters

Remove the whisk before boiling. Once the whisk stops, the egg whites rise into a raft that traps cloudy particles. Whisking or stirring would break the raft apart, leaving the jelly cloudy.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sherry, tarragon, vinegar, lemon, carrot, onion, celery. 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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