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Dessert

Jelly

A gelatinous dessert made from calf's feet, citrus, eggs, raisins, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. Boil water with calf's feet or cow heels until reduced by half.

  2. Remove fat and sediment from the liquid.

  3. Mix in orange juice, lemon juice and peels, egg whites and shells, brown sugar, raisin wine, and spices.

  4. Boil the mixture for 15 minutes without stirring.

  5. Strain through a flannel bag.

Colour and set

  1. Mix a little jelly with a cup of water boiled with beetroot.

  2. Strain the beetroot mixture through the bag after the main jelly is done.

  3. Let the jelly cool and set before 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. 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. Coriander + allspicetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together393 recipes

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

  4. Orange + allspicetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together727 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Lemon + allspicetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,083 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Calf's feet
Provides gelatine, which lets the liquid set into a firm jelly as it cools.
Egg whites and shells
Bind to impurities as they heat, so the strained jelly comes out clear.
Lemons
Add acidity that brightens the flavour and supports a clear, sharp jelly.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a deeper, molasses-like flavour to the jelly.
Raisin wine
Adds fruity, alcoholic aroma and flavour to the jelly.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture for 15 minutes without stirring. Stirring breaks up the egg whites and shells as they rise and coagulate, which would cloud the jelly. Leaving it still lets them trap impurities in a crust that the strainer can catch, so the result sets clear.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Limefits better
  2. Mangofits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against orange, lemon, egg, sugar, wine, coriander, allspice. 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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