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Aspic Jelly

A gelatinous meat stock made from calves’ feet, vegetables, herbs, and vinegar, set with egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 23 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and leek share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 64 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Aspic Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the feet

  1. Chop the calves’ feet into eight pieces and wash them well in cold water.

  2. Place the pieces in a stewpan, cover with cold water, and bring to a boil to blanch them.

  3. Pour off the water and wash again.

Make the stock

  1. Wash the stewpan, return the feet, and add 2 quarts of water.

  2. Bring to a boil, skimming occasionally.

  3. Add the salt and all other ingredients except the lemon, egg whites, and vinegars.

  4. Wash, scrape, and peel the vegetables before use.

  5. Let the mixture boil gently for 5 hours.

Clarify and finish

  1. Strain through a fine sieve into a basin and let cool completely.

  2. Skim off the fat and wipe the surface with a cloth dipped in hot water.

  3. Return the stock to a clean stewpan, add the lemon peel and juice, whipped egg whites and shells, vinegars, and salt.

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. Shallot + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together64 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Shallot + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Calves’ feet
Release gelatin into the stock, which allows it to set firm when cold.
Egg whites
Trap fine particles as they cook, clarifying the stock to a clear jelly.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the clarified stock.
Vinegars
Add acidity and sharp flavour that balances the rich, gelatinous stock.

The step that matters

Keep the stock at a gentle simmer during clarification. A hard, rolling boil breaks up the egg-white raft and churns particles back into the liquid, leaving the aspic cloudy instead of clear.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clove, garlic, shallot, thyme, parsley, onion, leek):

  1. Winter savoryfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, garlic, shallot, thyme, parsley, onion, leek. 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.

More aspic recipes

Chicken 77Meat 26Tomato 25Jelly 16Lobster 14Beef 10 See all 167 →

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