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Aspic Jelly

Aspic jelly is a gelatinous stock made from fowl and veal simmered with herbs and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Aspic Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Place the fowl and veal in a saucepan and cover with water.

  2. Bring the liquid to a slow boil and skim off any scum that rises to the surface.

  3. Simmer until the meat is soft.

  4. Add celery, shallot, carrot, herbs, parsley, cloves, mace, peppercorns, and salt.

  5. Simmer for 20 minutes.

  6. Remove the meat and fowl from the stock.

Clarify and cool

  1. Reduce the stock by half.

  2. Remove the fat from the surface.

  3. Strain the stock.

  4. Cool the strained stock.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Fowl
Contributes meat and body-giving collagen that gelatinises as the stock cools into aspic.
Veal neck
Adds collagen-rich connective tissue that yields gelatin, giving the stock its set.
Celery
Adds savory aromatic flavor to the stock.
Shallot
Adds mild onion-like aroma and savory depth to the stock.
Carrot
Adds subtle sweetness and aromatic depth to the stock.

The step that matters

Skim off any scum that rises to the surface. Scum is coagulated protein and impurities; removing it early keeps the stock clear and clean-tasting. Bringing the liquid to a slow boil rather than a hard boil helps prevent the stock from turning cloudy.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, celery, shallot, carrot, parsley, clove):

  1. Winter savoryfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, celery, shallot, carrot, parsley, clove. 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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