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Aspic or Savoury Jelly

A gelatinous dish made from simmered ox foot, pigs feet, veal, ham, and aromatics, set with egg whites and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 24 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Aspic or Savoury Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Put the ox foot, pigs feet, veal, and ham into a large pot with the onions, garlic, carrots, apples, and truffles, then add all other ingredients and 6 quarts of cold water.

  2. Boil quickly, then skim and simmer for 7 hours or longer.

  3. Strain into an uncovered earthen pan and let it cool overnight.

Clarify the jelly

  1. Remove all fat and wipe the surface of the jelly with a soft cloth dampened with hot water.

  2. Turn the jelly out and cut off any sediment.

  3. In a clean pot, combine the jelly with the rind of 1 lemon and the juice of 2 lemons.

  4. When nearly boiling, whisk in the beaten whites of eggs mixed with ½ cup of cold water, then boil rapidly.

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. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Clove + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Clove + appletop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Garlic + carrottop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,930 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Coagulate as they heat, trapping cloudy particles so the jelly becomes clear.
Ox foot
Releases gelatin into the water during long simmering, so the stock sets into a jelly.
Pigs feet
Add more gelatin and body to the stock, helping it set firmly.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the jelly.

The step that matters

Whisking in the egg whites. Add the egg whites when the jelly is nearly boiling, not earlier, so they can form a foam and coagulate. Boiling rapidly then lets the coagulated whites rise and trap cloudy particles, which clarifies the jelly.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, ham, onion, clove, garlic, carrot, truffle):

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Avocadofits about as well
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, onion, clove, garlic, carrot, truffle. 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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