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Fish Jelly

A chilled fish aspic made from gurnet, whiting, turbot heads, soles, celery, onions, sweet herbs, carrots, garlic, water, Madeira wine, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Whiting and turbot share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 33 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Fish Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Combine gurnet, whiting, turbot heads, soles, celery, onions, sweet herbs, carrots, garlic, and water in a stock pot.

  2. Season the mixture with salt and mignonette pepper.

  3. Bring to a boil and skim off the foam.

  4. Simmer for two hours until the mixture becomes firm.

Clarify and set

  1. Strain the jelly through a fine sieve.

  2. Add Madeira wine and clarify with egg whites and pounded whiting.

  3. Strain the clarified jelly through a jelly bag into a basin and cool on ice until firm.

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. Whiting + turbottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together33 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Clove + carrottop 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

Egg whites
Coagulate as they heat, trapping fine particles so the jelly comes out clear.
Pounded whiting
Adds protein and fish solids that bind with impurities to help clarify the jelly.
Gurnet
Contributes gelatin-rich bones and flesh that give the stock its body and setting power.
Turbot heads
Release collagen during simmering, which gives the stock the body needed to set firm.
Madeira wine
Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the jelly.

The step that matters

Clarifying with egg whites and pounded whiting. Stirring too vigorously or letting the mixture boil after adding the whites breaks up the raft that traps impurities, leaving the jelly cloudy instead of clear.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (whiting, turbot, celery, onion, carrot, garlic, pepper):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against whiting, turbot, celery, onion, carrot, garlic, pepper. 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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