Skip to main content
Dessert

Modern Cookery

A clear jelly made from orange and lemon juice, isinglass, egg white, and cold water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Modern Cookery

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice and isinglass

  1. Juice the oranges and lemons to yield about 1 pint of juice.

  2. Clarify the isinglass and add an additional ½ ounce.

  3. Beat the egg white slightly and mix it with the pint of cold water.

  4. Whisk the egg white and water mixture for 1-2 minutes.

Heat and clarify

  1. Pour the mixture onto the isinglass and stir occasionally while heating.

  2. Boil gently for 2-3 minutes, then skim and strain the mixture.

Finish and strain

  1. Wash the oranges and lemons, wipe them dry, and pare them.

  2. Use a clean muslin strainer, rinsed in hot and cold water, to strain the jelly.

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

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

  2. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Orange + eggtop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,696 recipes

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

Lemon and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Isinglass
Sets the liquid into a firm, clear jelly as it cools.
Egg white
Clarifies the liquid by trapping impurities as it heats, leaving it clear.
Oranges
Provide the main juice, sweetness and fruity flavour.
Lemons
Add sharper acidity to balance the orange juice.

The step that matters

Boil gently and strain slowly. Vigorous boiling or stirring breaks up the egg white raft that traps impurities, leaving the jelly cloudy. Skimming and straining slowly through clean muslin keeps it clear.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Orangethe original
  2. Limefits about as well
  3. Raspberryfits less well
  4. Blueberryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against 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.

You might also like

Orange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesLemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesOrange Cream Rice PuddingOrange Cream Rice Pudding121 recipes