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Excellent Red Jelly
1096. Dissolve one ounce of isinglass in three-quarters of a pint of water, and add the eighth part of the white of an egg well beaten. When nearly dissolved put in one pound of loaf sugar broken, and a third of a spoonful of cochineal powdered. Ten minutes before taking off the fire, put in the grated rind of three lemons. Strain it through muslin, and add a cupful of Madeira, or any other good white wine, and the strained juice of four lemons. If it looks thick, give it one boil up. Let it cool before it goes into the mould. The pan should be kept covered all the time it is boiling.
A clarified wine jelly of the mid-Victorian type, set with isinglass rather than sheet or powdered gelatine. The whole point is clarity, so the egg white and the muslin straining are not optional refinements.
- IsinglassDried sturgeon or cod swim bladder, the standard setting agent before commercial gelatine. It is still sold for brewing but is not interchangeable ounce for ounce with modern gelatine; if substituting, work from the gelatine packet's ratio for whatever the total liquid turns out to be once the wine and lemon juice go in.
- Don't boil hardIsinglass and gelatine both lose setting strength if held at a rolling boil. The recipe does call for boiling, covered, but keep it to a bare simmer where you can, and treat the final "one boil up" as a brief return to heat, not a hard boil.
- Why the egg whiteThe eighth of a beaten white is a clarifying agent. As it coagulates it traps cloudy matter, which then comes out in the muslin. Do not stir once it has set into a raft, or you will break it up and cloud the jelly again.
- Loaf sugarRefined cane sugar sold in hard cones, chipped off as needed. Ordinary granulated sugar is the direct equivalent; one pound is about 2 1/4 cups.
- CochinealPowdered dried scale insects, the standard red colouring of the period, still sold as carmine or E120. "A third of a spoonful" is not a defined quantity here; add a very little at a time, since cochineal is intensely staining, and stop at the colour you want.
- StrainingScald the muslin first and let the jelly run through without squeezing or pressing. Pouring the first cloudy pass back through the same cloth gives a clearer result.
- Wine and juice go in coldAdding the Madeira and lemon juice off the heat preserves the aroma; simmered wine in a jelly tastes flat. Note that the recipe still allows one boil up afterwards if the mixture looks thick. The size of the "cupful" is not specified.
- Moulding and yieldRinse the mould with cold water, fill, and chill at least four to six hours, preferably overnight. The finished quantity will be on the order of a pint and a half to two pints, depending on how much liquid is lost in boiling. Unmould by dipping the mould briefly in warm water.