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Jelly of Meat

A gelatinous stock made from beef, veal, bacon or ham, wine, stock, carrot, spices, herbs, salt, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and carrot are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,606 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Jelly of Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Brown the beef, veal, and bacon or ham in a pot.

  2. Add the glass of wine and cook for a few minutes.

  3. Pour in the quart of stock, add the carrot, spices, and sweet herbs.

  4. Simmer until the meat is tender and falls apart.

  5. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve or tamis.

Finish

  1. Season with salt and a grain of sugar.

  2. Let it cool, then skim off the fat.

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. Beef + carrottop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,606 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Beef + vealtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  3. Beef + hamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,729 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  4. Veal + carrottop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,015 recipes

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

  5. Veal + hamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,264 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Breaks down during simmering to release flavour and body into the liquid.
Veal knuckle
Adds gelatin-rich collagen that helps the cooled liquid set into a jelly.
Bacon or ham
Contributes savoury, smoky depth to the broth as it browns and simmers.
Stock
Forms the liquid base that the meat and flavourings cook into.

The step that matters

Let it cool, then skim off the fat. Fat left in the broth stays on the surface and can make the aspic greasy and cloudy. Chilling solidifies the fat so it lifts off cleanly, leaving a clear jelly.

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, veal, ham, wine, sugar):

  1. Tomatofits better
  2. Carrotthe original
  3. Onionfits about as well
  4. Capsicumfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, veal, ham, wine, sugar. 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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