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Aspic Jelly for Savouries

Aspic is a gelatin made from meat stock, vegetables, and seasonings, set with gelatin and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Aspic Jelly for Savouries

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Mix the meat extract with 2 quarts of water and simmer with the vegetables, onion, cloves, celery seed, and bay leaves until well flavored.

  2. Add the lemon rind, sherry, and vinegar.

Clarify and set

  1. Soak the gelatin in water, then add it to the stock with the egg whites and stir until dissolved.

  2. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes.

  3. Strain through a jelly bag until clear.

  4. Cool in a basin or soup plate, then cut into thin slices or diamonds for garnish.

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. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Shallot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together202 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Shallot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Sets the strained stock into a firm, wobbly jelly when chilled.
Egg whites
Bind to impurities as they heat, so they can be strained out for a clear result.
Meat extract
Adds concentrated savoury, meaty flavour to the stock.
Sherry
Adds aromatic, mellow acidity and sweetness to the finished jelly.

The step that matters

Strain through a jelly bag until clear. Egg whites must have coagulated and trapped cloudy particles before straining. Rushing the strain or letting the stock boil hard can leave the aspic cloudy and murky.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, egg, shallot, carrot, turnip, onion, clove):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Limefits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Cherryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, egg, shallot, carrot, turnip, onion, clove. 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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