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Dessert

Wine Jelly

A gelatinous dessert made with wine, sugar, citrus, coriander, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and coriander match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,498 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Wine Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. Combine water, sugar, gelatine, wine, juice and finely grated rind of the orange and lemon, and coriander seeds in a saucepan; let soak until gelatine softens.

  2. Whisk together the egg whites and shells, then add to the mixture.

  3. Heat over medium until boiling.

  4. Simmer gently for 10 minutes, then strain through a hot jelly bag or cloth until clear.

Set

  1. Pour the clear liquid into a wet mold and let 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. Lemon + coriandertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,498 recipes

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

  2. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Orange + coriandertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together674 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Sherry + orangetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together823 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  5. Sherry + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,273 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 and shells
Coagulate as they heat, trapping cloudy particles so the strained liquid becomes clear.
French leaf gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm, sliceable jelly as it cools.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the jelly and adds body to the liquid.
Sherry or marsala
Adds the wine flavour and alcohol-based aroma to the jelly.

The step that matters

Strain through a hot jelly bag until clear. Straining while the liquid is still hot keeps it fluid, so it passes through the cloth. The egg whites must be fully coagulated during simmering so they trap cloudy particles. Rushing this leaves the jelly cloudy.

Swap the coriander

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Corianderthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sherry, sugar, orange, lemon, egg. 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 wine jelly recipes

Port 43Arrowroot 13Constantia 6Madeira 6Apricot 3Lemon 3 See all 239 →

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