Aspic Jelly
2 2 tablespoons each, cut in cubes 2 sprigs parsley 2 sprigs thyme 1 sprig savory 2 cloves ½ teaspoon peppercorns 1 bay leaf 7/8 cup white or Madeira wine 1 box gelatine 1 quart White Stock for vegetables and white meat, or 1 quart Brown Stock for dark meat Juice 1 lemon Whites 3 eggs Aspic jelly is always made with meat stock, and is principally used in elaborate entrées where fish, chicken, game, or vegetables are to be served moulded in jelly. In making Aspic Jelly, use as much liquid as the pan which is to contain moulded dish will hold. Put vegetables, seasonings, and wine in a saucepan; cook eight minutes, and strain, reserving liquid. Add gelatine to stock, then add lemon juice and strained liquid. Season with salt and cayenne and whites of eggs slightly beaten. Add slowly to remaining mixture, stirring constantly until boiling-point is reached. Place on back of range and let stand thirty minutes. Strain through a double cheese-cloth placed over a fine wire strainer, or through a jelly bag.
A savory clarified gelatin used as a setting and glazing medium rather than a dish in itself. The printed ingredient list has come down garbled — the opening line is the standard mirepoix of carrot, onion and celery, two tablespoons of each, cut in cubes.
- The hinge: never boil after the raft formsThe egg whites coagulate and trap the cloudy particles, and once that raft has risen it must not be disturbed or brought to a rolling boil. Bring the mixture just to boiling point while stirring, as directed, then stop stirring and hold it at a bare tremble; the "back of the range" simply means a cooler spot where nothing agitates the raft.
- A box of gelatineA box of this period is generally reckoned at about an ounce of granulated gelatin, roughly three tablespoons or four modern quarter-ounce envelopes, though box sizes varied between makers. That is a firm set for a quart of stock — appropriate for a jelly that must be unmoulded and hold cut edges. Soften it in a little cold stock before adding it to the rest.
- 7/8 cupSeven-eighths of a cup is one cup less two tablespoons. Fannie Farmer used the measure often; there is no need to be more precise than that.
- The stock does the workAspic depends on a stock with real body and clean flavor, since gelatin sets but does not season. A well-reduced veal or chicken stock, strained and defatted cold, gives the best result; commercial broth will need reducing and seasoning hard before it is worth clarifying.
- Strain hot, cool fastLadle rather than pour through the doubled cheesecloth, and do not press the raft. Let the jelly drip; the last murky spoonfuls are better discarded than allowed to cloud the whole.
- Test the set before committingChill a tablespoon of the finished jelly on a saucer for a few minutes. If it is rubbery, thin with more stock; if it slumps, dissolve a little more softened gelatin into the warm liquid. Doing this before the mould is filled saves the whole entrée.
- Yield and useSomething over a quart, allowing for straining losses; the recipe itself says to use as much liquid as the mould will hold. Use it while it is syrupy and just beginning to thicken for coating, and fully liquid for lining a chilled mould in thin successive layers.
Aspic belongs to the cold larder of nineteenth-century professional cookery, where a clear meat jelly was the medium for chaud-froid platters, moulded chicken, salmon in jelly and the layered vegetable moulds that filled the entrée course. The name is French and its origin is disputed; it is often said to come from aspic, the asp, either for the coiled look of a moulded jelly or for the cold of the dish, though the etymology is traditional rather than settled. Before commercial granulated gelatin, cooks got their set by boiling down calves' feet or knuckle bones for hours, and clarified the result with egg white in exactly the manner described here. The appearance of "1 box gelatine" in a Boston Cooking School recipe marks the turn: by the 1890s packaged gelatin had put a technique once reserved for staffed kitchens within reach of a single cook, and Fannie Farmer's book is full of the elaborate moulded entrées that followed.