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Aspic Jelly for Savouries

Aspic jelly made from meat extract, vegetables, and gelatin, served in thin slices or diamonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Aspic Jelly for Savouries

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Mix the meat extract with 4 cups of water and simmer with the vegetables, cloves stuck in the onion, celery seed, and bay leaves until well flavored.

  2. Add the lemon rind, sherry, and vinegar.

  3. Soak the gelatine in water, then add it to the stock with the egg whites and stir until dissolved.

Clarify and set

  1. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes.

  2. Strain through a jelly bag until clear.

  3. Cool in a basin or soup plate, then cut into thin slices or diamonds for serving.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Shallot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together202 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Shallot + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,523 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Sets the cooled liquid into a firm jelly.
Egg whites
Bind to impurities so they can be strained out, clearing the stock.
Meat extract
Provides the concentrated savoury beef flavour of the stock.

The step that matters

Straining through a jelly bag until clear. Straining slowly and without squeezing keeps solids out, so the jelly sets clear rather than cloudy. Egg whites trap fine particles during simmering, and forcing the liquid through the bag would push them back into the stock.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, egg, shallot, carrot, turnip, onion, vinegar):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Limefits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Cherryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, egg, shallot, carrot, turnip, onion, 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.

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