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Aspic Jelly for Sandwiches
Soak one box (two ounces) of gelatine in one cup of cold chicken liquor until thoroughly softened.
Add to three cups of chicken stock, seasoned with vegetables and sweet herbs according to directions previously given, also the crushed shell and white of one egg, and proceed as for aspic jelly. Turn the liquid jelly into rectangular pans, having it three-eighths of an inch or less in thickness, and set aside in a cool place to harden. When ready to serve, dip the pan in hot water an instant, and turn the jelly on to a paper. With a thin, sharp knife cut the jelly into squares or diamonds, or dip a cutter into hot water and stamp out into hearts or clubs.
A clarified chicken aspic cut into shapes to garnish a sandwich plate. Two things decide whether it works: the strength of the gelatine and how gently the clarifying raft is handled.
- The "box" of gelatineA two-ounce box was a standard American package around 1900. Modern powdered gelatine runs about 1/4 oz (7 g) per envelope; roughly 2 to 2 1/2 envelopes will set four cups of stock firmly enough to slice, so the full two ounces would give a far stiffer jelly than you want.
- Firmness for cuttingAspic meant to be turned out and stamped needs to be noticeably firmer than aspic served in a mould. Err on the side of extra gelatine rather than less, but test a spoonful on a cold saucer before committing the whole batch.
- Chicken liquorSimply the cooking liquid from poaching a fowl. Any well-made, well-reduced chicken stock does the same job, provided it is skimmed clean of fat, which will otherwise cloud the finished jelly and leave a greasy film on the surface.
- The clarifying raftThe crushed shell and beaten white are whisked into cold or barely warm stock, then brought slowly to a bare shiver. Once the raft rises, stop stirring and do not let it boil, or it breaks up and the stock goes cloudy for good. Strain through a cloth-lined sieve without pressing.
- "Seasoned with vegetables and sweet herbs"Hill is referring back to her earlier stock directions; this recipe itself names no particular vegetables or herbs. Season the stock more assertively than you would a soup, since chilling mutes salt and acid considerably. A spoonful of sherry or lemon juice added off the heat lifts it.
- The pans and the thicknessThe recipe gives three-eighths of an inch "or less", so that is an upper limit; thicker slabs are clumsy on a sandwich. Use flat-bottomed rimmed sheet pans, and reckon four cups of stock at that depth over roughly 150 square inches -- more area than a quarter-sheet pan provides.
- UnmouldingAn instant in hot water means an instant. Loosen the edges with a knife tip first, and turn the sheet onto parchment rather than the book's plain paper, which sticks. Work fast in a warm kitchen and return cut shapes to the refrigerator to firm up before plating.
- KeepingClarified aspic will hold two or three days covered in the refrigerator, but it weeps as it ages and the surface dulls. Cut the shapes the day they are served.
Janet McKenzie Hill, who edited the Boston Cooking School Magazine, published Salads, Sandwiches and Chafing-Dish Dainties in 1899, when the fashionable American table had absorbed a French vocabulary of garnish wholesale. Aspic takes its name from the French aspic, and the word's origin is disputed; it is often said to come from the asp, for the coiled look of a moulded jelly, though that explanation is traditional rather than documented. What is clear is the function: before gelatine came reliably packaged, a jelly this clear was proof of a long-simmered stock and a patient cook, and stamping it into hearts and clubs turned the proof into decoration. The card-suit cutters point straight at the book's real setting, the late-Victorian card party and the chafing-dish supper, where sandwiches were meant to look composed on the plate rather than merely feed anyone.