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Chicken Jelly

Chicken jelly is a gelatinous dish made from chicken consommé, lemon, cayenne, salt, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Chicken Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Clarify

  1. Let the Chicken Consommé cool.

  2. Remove all fat.

  3. Add the lemon rind and juice, cayenne, salt, and egg whites with crushed shells to the consommé.

  4. Beat the egg whites just enough to mix them.

  5. Combine all ingredients well.

  6. Heat the mixture slowly.

  7. Bring it to a brisk boil for 10 minutes.

  8. Set it aside on the hearth for 5 minutes to settle.

  9. Pour through a jelly bag without squeezing.

Mold

  1. Rinse a bowl or mold with cold water.

  2. Pour the jelly in.

  3. Let it harden.

Adjust and strengthen

  1. If the consommé hasn't jellied, boil it down by at least half.

  2. Melt gelatine in a little cold consommé, using 1 box of gelatine for 3 pints of jelly.

  3. Stir the gelatine into the boiling jelly with the egg whites.

  4. Strain as before.

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 + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Chicken + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,092 recipes

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

  3. Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

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

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

  5. Chicken + eggtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,991 recipes

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

Lemon and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 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

Chicken consommé
Forms the base of the jelly and, when concentrated, sets into a firm gel.
Eggs
Whites and shells gather cloudy particles so the jelly comes out clear.
Lemon
Adds acidity and bright flavor that balances the rich consommé.

The step that matters

Pour through the jelly bag without squeezing. Squeezing pushes fine cloudy particles through the bag, which makes the jelly murky. Letting it drip keeps the clarified jelly clear.

“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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