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How to Prepare and Use Aspic Jelly (Two bay leaves a small blade)
two bay leaves, a small blade of mace, four cloves, two peppercorns and one scant tablespoonful of salt. Let simmer about an hour and a half; then strain and let cool.
What survives here is the tail end of an aspic recipe — the seasoning and simmering of the stock — with the meat, bones and vegetables that begin the list lost above the page break. Read it as the flavouring stage of a savoury jelly rather than a complete method.
- What is missingAn aspic of this period begins with veal knuckle or calf's foot, sometimes with a fowl carcass, plus onion, carrot and celery, covered with water. The spices listed here are added to that pot. Without the base there is nothing to gel.
- A blade of maceMace is the lacy aril around the nutmeg seed, sold whole in curved "blades" or ground. A small blade is somewhere in the region of a quarter to a half teaspoon of ground mace; here it goes into the pot with the other spices for the full simmer.
- Scant tablespoonful of saltThat is a little under a level tablespoon. For a stockpot of the two to three quarts such a recipe implies it is a reasonable seasoning, but salt concentrates as the liquid reduces over ninety minutes; add half at the start and correct after straining.
- Simmer, never boilThe hinge of any aspic. A rolling boil emulsifies fat and drives protein scum back into the liquid, and the jelly will set cloudy and greasy. Keep the surface barely trembling and skim as you go.
- StrainingStrain through a sieve lined with damp muslin or a coffee filter. If the result is still hazy, the period method is a raft of lightly beaten egg white and crushed shell brought slowly to a bare simmer, then ladled off through cloth.
- Cooling and settingChill the strained stock and lift off the solid fat cap before use. A properly gelatinous veal stock sets on its own; if it does not, softened leaf or powdered gelatine at roughly one tablespoon per pint of liquid gives a jelly firm enough to unmould.
- Cool it fastOld kitchens left stock standing overnight in a cold larder. Modern practice is to get it out of the 40-140F range quickly — a shallow pan or an ice bath, then the refrigerator, where it keeps three to four days.
Aspic belongs to the ornamental cookery that dominated hotel and household books around 1900, when a clear savoury jelly was both a preservative coating and a display medium: cold chicken, lobster, eggs or vegetables were sealed under it, or set into moulds lined with it. The technique is generally traced to French professional kitchens of the early nineteenth century, where Carême and his successors codified the clarified stock jelly, though jellies from calf's foot and knuckle of veal are far older in English cookery. Its place in a book of salads and chafing-dish suppers reflects the era's fondness for cold, composed dishes at luncheons and buffets — the spice list here, bay, mace, cloves and peppercorns, is the standard restrained aromatic of a clear stock, intended to season without colouring or clouding the finished jelly.