Skip to main content
Main

Meat Jellies

A clear gelatin made from broth, eggs, salt, lemon rind, and spirits, set with peppercorns.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Rum and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,908 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Meat Jellies

Ingredients

Directions

Make the clarified jelly

  1. In a saucepan, combine gelatine, eggs with shells, salt, lemon rind, and rum or wine, then mix well and add broth and peppercorns.

  2. Beat the mixture with an egg beater until well combined.

  3. Heat on a good fire, stirring gently until it boils.

  4. Reduce heat to low and boil slowly for about 8 minutes.

Strain and set

  1. Add burnt sugar before the first strain for color.

  2. Strain the mixture through a jelly bag into a bowl.

  3. Alternate bowls to ensure clarity, straining 3-4 times.

  4. Use immediately in liquid form or chill to congeal.

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. Rum + sugartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,908 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + rumtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Gelatine
Sets the broth into a firm jelly when it cools.
Eggs
Egg whites and shells collect cloudy particles, clarifying the broth as it boils.
Broth
Provides the meaty flavour and the bulk of the liquid in the jelly.
Rum, brandy, or wine
Adds aroma and acidity that brighten the flavour of the jelly.

The step that matters

Straining for clarity. Egg whites and shells must bind the cloudy particles during boiling, and the jelly must be strained slowly and repeatedly through a jelly bag. Rushing this leaves the jelly cloudy and dull rather than clear.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, rum, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Pineapplefits better
  3. Bananafits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, rum, 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.

More meat jelly recipes

Savory 11Cold 3Soup 3 See all 54 →

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes