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Aspic Jelly

Aspic is a gelatinous dish made from simmered calf feet, stock, vinegar, lemon, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,137 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Aspic Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Chop the calves' feet into eight pieces and wash them in cold water.

  2. Place the feet in a stewpan with enough cold water to cover them and boil to blanch.

  3. Pour off the water, wash the feet again, and return them to a clean stewpan with two quarts of water.

  4. Bring the stock to a boil, skim occasionally, and add salt and other ingredients except lemon, eggs, and vinegars.

  5. Boil gently for five hours, then strain the stock through a fine sieve into a basin and let it cool.

  6. Remove the fat and wipe the top of the stock with a cloth dipped in hot water.

Clarify and set

  1. Return the stock to the stewpan, add lemon peel and juice, whipped egg whites and shells, vinegars, and salt to taste.

  2. Whisk the mixture over heat until it boils, then let it stand for thirty minutes to form a crust.

  3. Set a clean soup cloth on a stand, pour the mixture through it, and let it run into a basin.

  4. Pass the liquid through a second cloth slowly, then scald a mold with boiling water and rinse it with cold water.

Mold and serve

  1. Garnish the mold with fish or vegetables, pour the jelly into it, and let it stand until cold 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 + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

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

  2. Tarragon + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together463 recipes

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

  3. Vinegar + tarragontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Lemon + carrottop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,351 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Sherry + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together660 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

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

What each ingredient does

Calves' feet
Their collagen dissolves into the stock and gives the finished aspic its gelling body.
Egg whites
Whipped whites collect particles as they heat, forming a crust that clarifies the liquid.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and supports clarification.
Sherry
Adds aroma and a rounded, sweet-dry flavour to the jelly.

The step that matters

Clarifying the stock with egg whites. Whisking the whites into the hot stock and letting it boil, then standing, lets the whites coagulate and trap cloudy particles. Straining gently through cloth keeps the jelly clear rather than murky.

Swap the carrot

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, egg, sherry, malt, vinegar, tarragon. 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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