Skip to main content
Main

Foie Gras Jellied

Foie Gras Jellied is a chilled dish of foie gras set in agar‑agar jelly with aromatics and served with tomato and mustard greens.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and 17,451 recipes mention both. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Foie Gras Jellied

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Open the tin of foie gras and cut it into two rounds, then into small sections.

  2. Dissolve the agar‑agar jelly in cold water and heat over low heat.

  3. Add the chicken stock, pepper, salt, onion, cloves, and celery to the mixture.

  4. Strain the mixture and add the egg white and shell.

  5. Stir and let it sit for a few minutes.

  6. Strain the jelly through a fine muslin.

  7. Add food coloring and sherry.

Set in the mold

  1. Wet a mold or ramekins.

  2. Pour a little jelly into the mold.

  3. Add some foie gras.

  4. Add more jelly.

  5. Chill until set.

Serve

  1. Turn out and decorate with sliced tomatoes and mustard greens.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Clove + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  4. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Foie gras
Provides the rich, buttery flavour and soft texture that the jelly sets around.
Agar agar
Gelling agent that sets the stock into a firm, sliceable jelly when chilled.
Chicken stock
Forms the savoury liquid base that gives the jelly its flavour.
Egg white
Clarifies the stock as it coagulates, so the finished jelly is clear.
Sherry
Adds a wine-like acidity and aroma that balances the richness of the foie gras.

The step that matters

Clarifying with egg white and straining. Heating the egg white with the stock lets it coagulate and trap cloudy particles. Straining through fine muslin afterwards removes them, so the jelly sets clear rather than murky.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (agar, chicken, pepper, clove, celery, egg, sherry):

  1. Arrowrootbetter flavor fit
  2. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  3. Mustardbetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against agar, chicken, pepper, clove, celery, egg, sherry. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesChicken BrothChicken Broth257 recipesChicken SoupChicken Soup156 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipes