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Veal Jelly

A gelatinous dish made from veal, hen, water, lemon or vinegar, sugar, salt, coriander, cinnamon, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Veal Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Put the hen or fowl and veal in a stewpot with water.

  2. Bring to a boil and skim well.

  3. Simmer gently for 3 hours.

  4. Skim off the fat.

  5. Strain through a fine cloth.

Clarify and set

  1. Return to a saucepan with lemon or vinegar, sugar, salt, coriander, and cinnamon.

  2. Boil for 15 minutes.

  3. Add the broken eggs.

  4. Stir gently until the jelly is clear and reduced to 1½ pints.

  5. Strain through a damp cloth.

  6. Pour into vessels.

  7. Let it set quickly in ice if possible.

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. Coriander + cinnamontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,635 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Veal + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,580 recipes

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

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Eggs
Their whites coagulate and collect impurities, clearing the jelly as they rise and are strained off.
Leg of veal
Releases collagen into the water, which sets as gelatin and gives the aspic its firm jelly.
Old hen or lean fowl
Adds body and savoury flavour to the stock that becomes the jelly.
White sugar
Balances the savoury stock with a mild sweetness in the finished jelly.
Lemon or white vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the clarified jelly.

The step that matters

Stirring the eggs into the jelly. Stir gently. Vigorous stirring breaks up the egg whites into fine particles that stay suspended and cloud the jelly, so it will not clear.

Swap the coriander

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Corianderthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, lemon, sugar, cinnamon, 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.

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