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Aspic Jelly for Cold Turkey or Meat
Put in the pot two pounds of beef; if you have veal or beef bones, break them and throw them in also, but they require longer boiling to dissolve the gelatine. Put in one-half pound of sweet ham or bacon, add all the sweet herbs, such as thyme, basil, parsley and marjoram; last of all, salt and pepper to taste. Boil for three or four hours. When it is sufficiently boiled, take off, strain, and put away to cool. Take off all the fat and sediment, and clarify by throwing into it the whites and shells of three eggs; add a cup of wine or two tablespoons of lemon juice. Place it again on the fire, let it boil a few minutes, and strain it through a jelly-bag.
This is a savoury meat jelly built entirely on natural gelatine from bones and connective tissue, then clarified with an egg raft. A few points bear on whether it sets at all.
- The hinge: gelatineModern supermarket beef is trimmed lean and will not give a jelly on its own. Use shin, oxtail or shank plus a split knuckle or two, and simmer long enough that the liquid feels tacky between your fingers. Chill a spoonful on a saucer for a few minutes before you commit; if it does not firm, reduce further or bloom powdered gelatine into the finished stock (roughly one envelope per 2 cups for a sliceable jelly).
- No water quantity is givenThe original leaves it to the cook's judgement. Barely cover the meat and bones, perhaps 2 quarts for 2 lb of beef plus bones, and top up sparingly so the stock stays concentrated.
- "Sweet ham or bacon""sweet" in period usage most likely means mild-cured rather than sugared, and probably unsmoked. A piece of unsmoked gammon or pancetta gives the intended background savour; heavily smoked supermarket bacon will dominate the jelly.
- Sweet herbsThe period term for the aromatic kitchen herbs, fresh or dried: thyme, basil, parsley, marjoram. Tie them in a bundle and add them in the last hour, since three or four hours of boiling flattens their aroma.
- Boil means simmerAn actual rolling boil emulsifies fat into the stock and clouds it, which makes the later clarification much harder. Hold it at a bare tremble for the three to four hours.
- Salt sparingly at the startThe recipe seasons early, but the liquid will lose a good deal of volume. Season lightly during cooking and correct after the stock has reduced and been clarified.
- The egg raftWhisk the whites and crushed shells into the stock while it is cold, then bring it up slowly, stirring until it begins to steam and no further. Once the raft forms, leave it undisturbed for ten minutes rather than boiling it hard, or it will break up and cloud what it was meant to clear.
- Jelly-bagA fine sieve lined with three or four layers of dampened cheesecloth over a bowl. Ladle rather than pour, and never press or squeeze the solids.
- Wine and acidA cup of wine is a large addition to a small quantity of stock; dry sherry or Madeira is traditional for aspic, and the two tablespoons of lemon juice are the leaner alternative, not an addition.
- Cooling and yieldChill uncovered until cold, then refrigerate rather than leaving the pot out overnight. Two pounds of beef with bones yields something like a quart of jelly, enough to glaze a cold turkey or line a couple of small moulds, and it keeps three or four days refrigerated.
Aspic belongs to the cold table, the sideboard of glazed and moulded dishes that carried a Victorian and Edwardian household through the days after a large roast. A clear meat jelly was treated less as a dish than as a finishing medium, brushed over sliced cold turkey or ham to seal the cut surfaces, keep them from drying and give them a lacquered shine. The technique is often said to derive from professional French kitchens, where clarified gelatinous stock was a bench staple, and the name is generally traced to the French aspic, though the various explanations offered for it are traditional rather than documented. The Butterick Cook Book came from the Butterick Publishing Company, better known for its dress patterns, and like much household publishing of the period it aimed to put restaurant procedures within reach of a domestic cook working without refrigeration beyond a cool larder or an icebox.