Why it works: Milk and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 77,875 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Water Jelly or Milk Jelly Made with Iceland Moss
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the moss
Wash 1 oz. of Iceland Moss well in cold water.
Soak the moss in a basin of cold water overnight.
After soaking, squeeze the moss dry in a cloth.
Make the jelly
Put the moss in a saucepan with 1 quart of cold water.
Bring the saucepan to a boil and let it boil for 1 hour, stirring frequently.
Strain the mixture through a sieve into a basin and sweeten with loaf sugar.
Serve with either wine or milk according to taste.
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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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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
- Iceland moss
- Its gel-forming starch thickens the cold water into a soft, wobbly jelly as it cooks.
- Loaf sugar
- Adds sweetness to balance the mild, slightly bitter flavour of the moss jelly.
The step that matters
Boil the moss for a full hour, stirring often. The moss's gel-forming starch must be fully extracted by long, steady boiling. Stirring stops the moss from sticking and scorching on the bottom of the pan, and a weak boil leaves the jelly too thin to set.
“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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