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Aspic Jelly for Garnishing
Take two pints of nicely-flavoured stock, of a clear and firm jelly; put this into a saucepan with a blade of mace, a table-spoonful of tarragon vinegar, and a glass of sherry. Let it boil, then stir into it an ounce of the best gelatine which has been soaked in a little cold water. When again cool add the whisked whites of two eggs, let it boil, then draw it on one side to settle, strain through a jelly-bag until quite clear, and pour it on a dish which has been standing in cold water. Cut it into dice for garnishing. Time to make, about an hour. Sufficient for two and a half pints of jelly. Probable cost, 10d without the wine.
A savoury setting jelly meant to be turned out firm, diced, and used as a glittering border round cold meat, fish or a raised pie. The whole point is clarity, and everything in the method serves it.
- The hinge: clarify at the right temperature"When again cool add the whisked whites" means lukewarm — around 100F/38C to the touch, not chilled. Add the whites to hot liquid and they set into shreds before they can trap anything; add them to cold jelly and it will not liquefy evenly. Once the raft rises, stop stirring altogether, draw the pan off the heat, and let it settle before straining.
- Start with a stock that already sets"Of a clear and firm jelly" is the real instruction. Use a stock built on veal knuckle, chicken feet or wings, well skimmed and strained, that sets solid in the refrigerator on its own. A thin stock will give you cloudy, weeping jelly no matter how much gelatine goes in.
- Gelatine quantityAn ounce is about 28g — roughly four 7g sachets of powdered gelatine, or 14 to 16 leaves. That is a stiff set for 2.5 pints, and deliberately so: aspic for dicing has to hold a clean edge at room temperature. Bloom it in cold water first, as directed, and dissolve it off the boil rather than boiling it hard.
- A glass of sherryA wine glass in Victorian receipts is generally reckoned at about 2 to 2.5 fl oz. Use a dry fino or amontillado; sweet cream sherry will read as odd against the vinegar. Some of the alcohol burns off in the boil, but not all.
- Blade of mace and tarragon vinegarA blade of mace is one piece of the lacy covering of the nutmeg, not ground mace, which will cloud the jelly. Ground mace can substitute at about 1/8 teaspoon only if it goes in before clarification. Tarragon vinegar is still sold; white wine vinegar with a bruised tarragon sprig steeped in it for an hour does the same job.
- StrainingA jelly-bag is a conical flannel or muslin bag hung over a bowl. A double layer of damp muslin in a sieve works. Scald it first, let the jelly run through by gravity, and never squeeze — pressure pushes fine sediment through and undoes the clarification.
- Setting and dicingPour into a shallow tray so the layer is about half an inch deep; the dish standing in cold water is a Victorian substitute for refrigeration. Chill until fully firm, at least three hours, then turn out onto damp greaseproof and cut with a thin knife dipped in hot water.
- Yield and keepingTwo and a half pints is generous — enough to garnish several large cold dishes. It keeps three or four days covered in the refrigerator and can be re-melted gently once, though it loses a little sparkle each time. The 10d cost is late-Victorian money, before the wine.
Aspic belongs to the cold buffet cookery that dominated grand Victorian and Edwardian service, where a dish was judged as much by its appearance on the sideboard as by its taste. The name is generally traced to the French aspic, and it is often said to come from the snake of the same name, the mottled jelly being likened to its skin — a folk etymology rather than a documented one. What made these jellies possible at scale was that commercial leaf and powdered gelatine had become cheap and reliable by the second half of the nineteenth century; before that, a cook extracted her own setting power from calves' feet, a day's work in itself. Chopped aspic was a general-purpose finish, spooned round galantines, pressed tongue, salmon and mayonnaise-coated fowl, and clarifying with egg white is a technique a cook was expected to master once and then apply everywhere. It is the same operation as clearing consommé, only stopped at the point where the liquid will set.