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Dessert

Jelly Op Gelatine

A clear gelatin dessert made with gelatine, water, lemon rind and juice, sugar, and beaten egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Jelly Op Gelatine

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. Pour 1 quart of boiling water over the gelatine and keep it near the fire until dissolved.

  2. Add the grated rind and juice of the lemons along with the sugar, and let it boil once.

  3. Remove from heat and strain the mixture.

Clarify and set

  1. When lukewarm, add the beaten egg whites (washed and dried) and strain again until the jelly is clear.

  2. Pour into molds and set to cool.

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

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

  2. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

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

  3. 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 water and lemon liquid into a firm, wobbly jelly when it cools.
Egg whites
Bind with impurities when heated, so straining leaves the jelly clear.
Lemons
Add acidity and aroma from the rind and juice, balancing the sugar.

The step that matters

Adding the egg whites while lukewarm. If the liquid is too hot, the egg whites cook early and cannot trap the cloudy particles, so the jelly stays murky. Adding them when only lukewarm lets them mix in and then coagulate and collect impurities as the jelly is brought back to a boil and strained.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Datesfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, 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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