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Isinglass Jelly, Cranberry
Mix a quart of cranberry-juice with a pint of isinglass jelly and half a pound of loaf sugar, boil it for five minutes, and, after straining, pour into a mould. Instead of isinglass, this jelly is sometimes made with ground rice, as follows. Strain the juice of a quart of cranberries after they have been boiled; mix with it slowly enough ground rice to thicken it to the consistency of jelly; now boil it, taking care that the rice does not adhere to the bottom of the pan, add sugar to taste, pour into a mould, and, when cold, turn out on a glass dish, with a garnish of Devonshire cream. Probable cost of isinglass, 1s. per ounce; ground rice, 3d. to 4d. per pound.
Two versions of the same dish: one set with isinglass, one thickened with ground rice. The second is the one most cooks will want, since it needs nothing you cannot buy.
- IsinglassPurified collagen from the swim bladders of sturgeon and other fish, sold in leaves or shreds and soaked, then dissolved in water to make a stock jelly. Powdered gelatine or leaf gelatine does the same work; isinglass survives today mainly as a fining agent for beer and wine.
- "A pint of isinglass jelly"This is a pint of already-made jelly stock, not a pint of dry isinglass. The book gives no strength for that stock, so the setting power here is genuinely unknown — treat the quantity as a starting point and test a spoonful on a cold saucer before moulding.
- Imperial measuresCassell's quart is 40 fl oz, about 5 US cups; the pint is 20 fl oz, about 2 1/2 cups. Half a pound of loaf sugar is a generous cup of granulated. Loaf sugar was refined cane sugar broken from a cone — ordinary white sugar is its direct descendant.
- Don't boil the gelatine longProlonged boiling can weaken gelatine's setting power, so five minutes at a rolling boil risks a slack result. Bring the mixture just to a simmer to dissolve the sugar, then strain and mould.
- Ground riceRice flour, slightly coarser than the modern superfine sort. Slake it with a little cold juice first, or it will lump the moment it hits hot liquid.
- The hinge in the rice versionRice starch settles and scorches, and scorched rice flavours the whole mould. Stir constantly with a flat-ended spoon that reaches the corners of the pan, and cook it until the raw starch taste is gone — two or three minutes at a bare simmer past thickening.
- Cranberry juiceUse unsweetened juice, not sweetened cranberry cocktail, or the half pound of sugar will be far too much. A quart of berries simmered with water and strained yields roughly a quart of thin juice.
- Devonshire creamClotted cream. Thick, scalded, faintly nutty; whipped double cream is a fair stand-in but lacks the cooked note.
- YieldA quart of juice with a pint of jelly comes to roughly three imperial pints, so allow a mould of that capacity; the rice version depends on how much juice a quart of berries gives. Chill at least four hours, and dip the mould briefly in warm water to turn out.
Isinglass was a standard clear setting agent in nineteenth-century English kitchens, prepared from the dried swim bladders of sturgeon and long associated with the Russian trade — the finest grades were sold as "Russian" isinglass. It was expensive, and the price note here shows why Cassell's offers an alternative in the same breath: a shilling an ounce for isinglass against threepence or fourpence a pound for ground rice, a difference of roughly fifty-fold by weight. Commercial sheet gelatine was increasingly available from the middle of the century and had largely displaced isinglass in the kitchen by its end. The cranberries would have been either the small tart British bog berry or, increasingly, imported American fruit, which was shipped in barrels and said to keep well; a moulded fruit jelly turned out onto glass with clotted cream belongs to the same Victorian table-setting instinct that produced the shaped blancmange and the elaborately moulded jelly.