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Dessert

Orange C Ales Eeet Jelly

A clear jelly made from calf’s feet stock, orange juice, lemon juice, sugar, orange and lemon rinds, egg whites, and crushed egg shells.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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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 ↓

Orange C Ales Eeet Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

  1. In a pot, combine the calf's feet stock, orange juice, lemon juice, sugar, orange rinds, lemon rind, egg whites, and crushed egg shells.

  2. Stir gently over medium heat until scum begins to form, then stop stirring.

  3. Simmer the mixture for 10 minutes after it reaches a full boil.

  4. Remove from heat and let it stand briefly.

  5. Pour through a jelly bag until perfectly clear.

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 + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

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

  4. Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Egg whites
Coagulate as they heat, collecting impurities into scum so the jelly clarifies.
Calf's feet stock
Provides gelatin, which sets the liquid into a firm jelly as it cools.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the set jelly its body.
Orange juice
Supplies the main citrus flavour and acidity.

The step that matters

Stopping the stirring once scum forms. Stirring after scum begins to form breaks up the coagulated egg white mass, so it cannot trap impurities and the jelly will stay cloudy.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Orangethe original
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Limefits less well
  4. Raisinfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, sugar, 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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