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Almond Jelly
Put one ounce and a half of best isinglass, a quart of water, a little sugar, and a quarter of a pound of blanched and pounded almonds into a saucepan. Let them boil half an hour. Strain the liquid carefully through a jelly-bag, flavour it with a little brandy, and pour it into a wet mould. If calf's-foot stock is used, the almonds should be boiled with a little sugar and water separately for some time, to extract the flavour, then the liquid mixed with the stock, and all boiled up together again, with a tea-spoonful of isinglass to a quart of stock. Time, an hour and a half. Probable cost, 2s., without the brandy. Sufficient for a moderate-sized mould.
A blancmange-style moulded jelly from the era when setting agents came from fish bladders and calves' feet. The method translates cleanly to leaf or powdered gelatine, but the quantities and the long boil both need rethinking.
- IsinglassIsinglass is dried fish swim-bladder, chiefly sturgeon, sold in leaves or shreds and still available from brewing suppliers, though it is now used mainly for fining beer. Modern gelatine is stronger by weight: for a quart of liquid, about 1/2 to 1 oz (two to four 7 g packets, or roughly 8 to 16 leaves depending on grade) gives a jelly firm enough to unmould, and less if you want it barely set.
- Do not boil the gelatine for half an hourThis is the instruction that matters. Prolonged boiling breaks down gelatine and the jelly will set weakly or not at all. Steep the almonds in the sweetened water first, strain, then dissolve the gelatine in the warm liquid off the heat.
- Calf's-foot stockThe alternative method uses jelly stock made by long-simmering split calves' feet, which sets on its own; the teaspoonful of isinglass is only insurance. Butchers rarely stock feet now. Substituting gelatine-set water is the practical route, at the cost of the richer mouthfeel the stock gave.
- AlmondsA quarter pound of blanched almonds, pounded to a paste and steeped, gives a mild, milky flavour, not the marzipan note of extract. Grinding them in a processor with a little of the water works; two or three drops of good almond extract added at the end sharpens it if the flavour reads thin.
- Jelly-bagA jelly-bag is a cone of close-woven flannel or muslin used to strain without pressing. A double layer of dampened muslin or a fine nut-milk bag in a sieve does the same. Let it drip rather than squeezing, or the almond solids cloud the jelly.
- Wet mouldRinsing the mould with cold water and leaving it wet lets the set jelly release cleanly. Chill at least four hours, longer for a deep mould; a brief dip of the mould's base in warm water helps it turn out.
- Brandy and sugar"A little sugar" is unspecified; 2-3 oz (about 1/3 cup) per quart suits a modern palate. Add the brandy after the liquid has cooled somewhat, one to two tablespoons, so the alcohol is not driven off.
- Yield"A moderate-sized mould" means about a quart, serving six to eight. The probable cost of 2s. is given as it is for most recipes in the book, for the benefit of a household accountant.
Almond jelly belongs to a long European line of white almond sweets running back through medieval blancmange, where pounded almonds stood in for dairy and the dish was thickened with rice, or later with isinglass and calf's-foot stock. Isinglass, imported chiefly from Russia in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, gave Victorian cooks a clear, near-flavourless set that calf's-foot jelly could not match without hours of skimming and clarifying, and it dominated the confectioner's repertoire until commercially sheeted and powdered gelatine displaced it over the course of the nineteenth century. The moulded jelly was treated as a technique to be mastered: get the proportion of setting agent to liquid right, strain until the jelly is glass-clear, and every flavoured variation follows from it.