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Wine Jelly, Madeira
This jelly is made just like calf's foot jelly. When the jelly is nearly clarified, pour into the same stewpan a bottle of Madeira. As the operation of clarifying takes away the strength of the wine, you must add half a bottle of brandy to it. You must observe that this jelly will keep for several days, and that accordingly what you have left, and what is sent down from table, will be sufficient to supply you with another entremet some other day. This is a common jelly, which cooks frequently serve; therefore, in order to avoid monotony, you must ornament it with another jelly, which make as follows:--Take four spoonfuls of the wine jelly, break the yolks of four eggs into a stewpan, beat the eggs with the jelly, and lay it on the fire to thicken; then strain it through a sieve, lay it on ice in a basin, and use it for the same purpose, to decorate as in the recipe WINTER JELLY, MOSAIC. It sometimes happens that the jellies made of calf's feet will break when you turn them upside down into a dish. To prevent this accident, throw in a pinch of isinglass when you are going to clarify the jelly. It gives a greater substance. This jelly is a monotonous one, but the sagacity of the cook will in some respects alter this character, for he will sometimes give this, jelly plain, sometimes with grapes in it, and sometimes put it in a cylinder mould. To garnish the jelly, have some of the same on ice, chop it very fine, and put it sometimes all round, sometimes in the middle, and try by your intelligence to supply the deficiency of variety when-ever you can. This jelly is made in all seasons; in summer strawberries are excellent in it, and the flavour of the fruit harmonises well with the jelly.
WINE JELLY, MADEIRA (another way). (See MADEIRA WINE JELLY.)
A Madeira jelly built on the calf's-foot jelly of the same book, with a cooked egg-yolk jelly used as an opaque decoration. Most of the work is in the base; the wine goes in at the end for a reason.
- Add the wine off the boilThe alcohol and aromatics of Madeira drive off with heat, which is why the recipe adds a whole bottle only when clarification is nearly finished, then compensates with brandy. Stir it into the strained, still-warm jelly rather than boiling it in, or the flavour flattens to sweet syrup.
- Alcohol and setA bottle of Madeira plus half a bottle of brandy is roughly a litre of fortified liquid going into a jelly. Alcohol at that level weakens a gelatin set noticeably; the recipe's pinch of isinglass is offered against jellies breaking when they are turned out. If you use modern leaf or powdered gelatin, expect to increase it over the plain calf's-foot quantity.
- Isinglass and calf's footIsinglass is dried fish swim bladder, a pure setting agent still sold for clearing beer. Calf's-foot stock is a long-boiled gelatin extraction; both can be replaced by leaf gelatin, working to about 1.5 to 2 percent gelatin by weight of liquid for a jelly firm enough to unmould.
- Clarifying"Nearly clarified" means the raft of beaten egg white and shell has risen and the liquid beneath runs clear. Strain through a scalded jelly bag or a double thickness of muslin without squeezing, and do not stir the raft once it has formed.
- The yolk decorationFour spoonfuls of jelly beaten with four yolks and set over heat is a custard, not a jelly, and it will scramble at the slightest boil. Take it to the point where it coats a spoon, around 80C, then strain it at once into a basin over ice as directed.
- EntremetAt this period an entremet was a dish served between or after the main courses, not a modern dessert course as such. A moulded jelly of this kind was one of several dishes set out for a table to share, not one portion each.
- Do not re-serve what came back from tableThe instruction to keep leftovers and what "is sent down from table" for another day's dish belongs to a kitchen with a cold larder and different expectations. A gelatin jelly that has stood in a warm dining room is a good bacterial medium; refrigerate any unserved jelly promptly and treat plated returns as waste.
- UnmouldingDip the mould in warm, not hot, water for a few seconds and invert onto a wetted dish so the jelly can be slid into position. The chopped jelly used as a garnish should be cut with a wet knife on a cold surface and heaped just before serving, since it slumps quickly at room temperature.
Wine jellies of this kind sat at the centre of nineteenth-century grand-service dessert tables, where a tall, clear, unmoulded jelly demonstrated that a kitchen could make and clarify its own gelatin from calves' feet, a job of several days. The tone of the entry, with its talk of entremets, mosaic jellies and the cook's "sagacity" in avoiding monotony, is that of the French professional tradition that English cookery dictionaries drew on and translated throughout the century. Madeira earned its place in such dishes as a prestige fortified wine, and a bottle of it alongside a half-bottle of brandy marks this as an expensive dish rather than a thrifty one; the added brandy is a frank admission that boiling and skimming strip out much of what the wine was there to provide.