Why it works: Egg and ham are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,526 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓
Game, in Aspic Jelly
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the mold
Rinse a plain mold with cold water.
Cover the bottom with a thin layer of liquid aspic and let it set.
Decorate and fill
Decorate with stamped-out pieces of ham and egg white, fixing them with a little aspic.
Once the decoration has stiffened, add small pieces of seasoned game, removing skin and bone.
Leave space for jelly and let the jelly covering the game set before adding another layer.
Chill and serve
Keep the mold on ice or in a cool place until ready to serve, then turn out and serve.
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.
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Egg + hamtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,526 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Old cooked game
- Forms the main body of the dish and gives it its meaty flavour.
- Aspic jelly
- Sets into a clear jelly that holds the decoration and binds the layers together.
- 2 hard-boiled eggs
- Egg white provides a contrasting white decoration pressed into the jelly.
- Thin strips of lean cooked ham
- Adds savoury flavour and colour to the decoration and filling.
The step that matters
Let each layer set before adding the next. Aspic is a gelatin-based jelly that only firms when cold. If you pour or add game before the layer below has stiffened, the layers mix and the decoration shifts, so the set aspic must be firm to hold each new layer in place.
“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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