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Aspic Jelly

A gelatinous stock made from calves' feet, herbs, and vinegar, thickened with egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 23 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and leek share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 64 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Aspic Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the feet

  1. Chop the calves' feet into eight pieces.

  2. Wash the pieces in cold water.

  3. Place them in a stewpan, cover with cold water, and bring to a boil to blanch.

  4. Pour off the water and wash the feet again in cold water.

Make the stock

  1. Clean the stewpan, return the feet, and add 2 quarts of water. Bring to a boil, skimming occasionally.

  2. Add ½ teaspoon of salt and all other ingredients except the lemon, eggs, and vinegars.

  3. Simmer gently for 5 hours.

  4. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve into a basin and let it cool completely. Skim off the fat and wipe the surface with a cloth dipped in hot water.

Clarify

  1. Return the stock to a clean stewpan, add the thinly peeled lemon rind and juice, the whipped egg whites, and the shells.

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. Shallot + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together64 recipes

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

  2. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  5. Shallot + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Calves' feet
Their collagen releases gelatin during simmering, which sets the stock into a firm jelly as it cools.
Egg whites
As they cook, they gather cloudy particles into a raft so the stock can be strained clear.
Lemon
Its acidity brightens the flavour of the clarified stock and helps the egg whites set.

The step that matters

Clarify the stock with egg whites. The whipped egg whites and shells must be heated gently so they form a raft that traps cloudy particles. Boiling hard breaks the raft and leaves the aspic murky.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clove, garlic, shallot, thyme, parsley, onion, leek):

  1. Winter savoryfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, garlic, shallot, thyme, parsley, onion, leek. 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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