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Aspic Jelly
5 cups strong consomme 1 tablespoon carrot, mined 1 tablespoon onion, minced dash of cayenne 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/8 teaspoon pepper 2 teaspoons vinegar or lemon juice 1 box gelatine 1 cup cold water whites and shells of two eggs Cook consomme, vegetables, seasonings, lemon juice for 10 minutes. Soak the gelatine in 1 cup of cold water, let stand for 20 minutes. Pour the hot broth over the soaked gelatine, add whole egg with crushed shells to the broth. Stir well together, remove from the fire and let stand for 30 minutes. Strain through flannel or two thicknesses of cheesecloth. In hot weather reduce liquid 1 cup.
A classic clarified aspic, written for a household that had just acquired a mechanical refrigerator. The whole point is clarity, and everything in the method serves it.
- Start with fat-free consommeAny fat left in the broth will cloud the jelly and leave a greasy film on the finished mold. Chill the consomme first and lift off the solidified fat before you begin.
- "1 box gelatine"Box sizes varied, but a box of granulated gelatine of this period generally held around an ounce, roughly equivalent to four modern 1/4-ounce envelopes, or about 3 level tablespoons. That is a firm proportion for this much liquid -- enough to unmold and slice.
- The clarifying raftEgg white and crushed shell trap the fine particles that make broth cloudy. Whisk them into the hot liquid, bring it to a bare simmer while stirring, then stop stirring entirely and let the coagulated raft rise and set. Stirring after that point breaks it up and you lose the clarity.
- Strain without pressingLadle the liquid gently through the flannel or doubled cheesecloth and never squeeze the cloth. Wet the cloth first so it does not absorb your broth.
- Adding hot liquid to soaked gelatineThe 20-minute soak in cold water is not optional; it lets each granule swell so the hot broth dissolves it smoothly rather than leaving stringy lumps.
- "In hot weather reduce liquid 1 cup"Sound advice from the days of unreliable refrigeration, and still useful: less liquid to the same gelatine gives a firmer set for a buffet dish that must stand at room temperature. In a modern refrigerator the full 5 cups sets well.
- SettingChill at least 4 hours, or overnight for a large mold. To unmold, dip the mold briefly in warm water and invert onto a wetted plate so the jelly can be slid into position.
- YieldThe 5 cups of consomme plus the cup of soaking water come to about 6 cups before straining losses, so allow a mold of roughly 1 1/2 quarts; serves 8 to 10 as a garnish or a base for chopped aspic. Chop the trimmings on a cold plate and use them to border a cold platter.
Aspic belongs to the cold-larder cookery of early twentieth-century American entertaining, when mechanical refrigeration made a jelly more dependable than it had been under an icebox and the weather. Its ancestry is French garde-manger practice, where the gelatine came from long-simmered veal bones and calves' feet and clarifying with egg white and shell was standard kitchen craft; packaged granulated gelatine, the "1 box" here, put the same technique within reach of a cook without a stockpot going all day. The instruction to reduce the liquid in hot weather reflects that transitional period, when a jelly could not always be relied on to hold.