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Aspic

A gelatinous dish made from simmered vegetables, stock, and gelatin, strained and cooled to set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 24 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

Ingredients

Directions

Make the clear stock

  1. Combine the onions, carrots, celery, shallot, parsley, sweet herbs, spices, pepper, and salt in a large pot.

  2. Add the clear stock and simmer gently for 3 to 4 hours.

  3. Strain the liquid into a bowl.

  4. Let the strained liquid cool.

  5. Remove any fat from the cooled liquid.

Clarify and finish

  1. Melt the gelatin in a saucepan.

  2. Add burnt sugar for color if desired.

  3. Whisk in the whites of 2 eggs and ⅓ cup of tarragon vinegar.

  4. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  5. Strain the boiling mixture through a gelatin bag or kitchen cloth.

  6. In a clean saucepan, combine the brown stock, water, gelatin, lemon rind and juice, bouquet garni, sliced carrot, sliced onion, mace, cloves, salt, peppercorns, and the whites and shells of 2 eggs.

  7. Whisk the mixture over heat until it boils.

  8. Simmer for 15 minutes with the lid on.

  9. Strain the mixture twice through a napkin or gelatin bag into a bowl.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whites and shells bind particles and clarify the stock as they set in the simmer.
Gelatine
Sets the cooled liquid into a firm, wobbly aspic.
Clear stock
Forms the flavor base and most of the liquid of the aspic.
Brown stock
Adds depth and color to the finished aspic.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and helps clarify the liquid.

The step that matters

Boiling and straining the clarifying mixture. Whisking the egg whites into the stock and bringing it to a boil lets the whites trap cloudy particles. Straining too early or stirring vigorously afterward can break the raft and leave the aspic cloudy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, celery, shallot, parsley, pepper, sugar, lemon):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, celery, shallot, parsley, pepper, sugar, lemon. 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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