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Dessert

Hartshorn Jelly

A gelatin made from deer horn, clarified with egg whites and flavored with lemon and optional saffron.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and saffron match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 538 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Hartshorn Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil hartshorn shavings in water over gentle heat until thick enough to coat a spoon.

  2. Strain into a clean saucepan and add sherry wine and sugar.

  3. Whisk egg whites to a froth and stir into the mixture to clarify.

  4. Boil for 4-5 minutes, then add lemon juice and stir well.

  5. If a deeper color is desired, boil a little saffron in the mixture.

  6. Strain again and pour into a mold.

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 + saffrontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together538 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Wine + saffrontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together282 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Wine + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Sherry + saffrontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together37 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Sherry + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,273 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Hartshorn shavings
Gelling agent that sets the liquid into a firm jelly as it cools.
Egg whites
Coagulate when whisked and heated, trapping cloudy particles so the jelly clarifies.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the sharpness of the lemon juice.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and bright flavor that cuts the sweetness.
Sherry wine
Adds aroma and flavor to the jelly.

The step that matters

Clarifying with egg whites. Egg whites must be whisked in and then brought to a boil so they coagulate and trap cloudy particles. Stirring too early or skipping the second straining leaves the jelly cloudy.

Swap the saffron

The recipe marks saffron as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sherry, wine, sugar, egg, lemon):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Saffronthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sherry, wine, sugar, egg, lemon. 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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