No. 106

Sweet Jelly with Gelatine, or Fish Isinglass

Gelee Douce a la Gelatine ou a la Colle de Poisson

Put into a basin four quarts of water, three pounds of sugar, half a pound of gelatine or ten ounces of fish isinglass and the peel of eight lemons, stir the whole well together until the sugar is melted, then set the basin on a slow fire and beat well with a whip; as soon as it begins to boil put in twelve partly beaten egg-whites into which has been added the juice of twelve lemons; mix the whole well together stirring unceasingly and allowing it to boil slowly from fifteen to twenty minutes, then withdraw the basin from the fire and let the jelly rest for a few moments; now pour it through a flannel bag upheld by a ring (Fig. 50); return it several times until it acquires a perfect limpidity. The lemon-peel can be suppressed, flavoring it with any kind of liquor or clarified fruit juice.

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For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer's foundation recipe for a clear lemon jelly, written for a restaurant kitchen turning out large moulds. The technique is classic egg-white clarification, and everything depends on how you handle the raft and the filter.

Scale it downFour quarts of water plus three pounds of sugar makes a very large quantity of jelly, enough for many moulded portions. Quartering the recipe (1 quart water, 12 oz sugar, 2 oz gelatine, 3 egg whites, the juice of 3 lemons and the peel of 2) follows the original proportions.
The hinge: stop stirringRanhofer says to stir unceasingly, which suits a professional working a copper basin over a slack fire. In a home pan, stir only until the whites are dispersed and the liquid is hot; once the coagulum begins to rise, leave it alone. Breaking up the raft is what makes the jelly cloudy, and no amount of re-filtering will fully fix it.
Gelatine strengthHalf a pound of gelatine to four quarts is a very firm set by modern standards, but it is deliberate: this jelly must be unmoulded and stand up on a platter in a warm dining room, and some strength is lost in the long boil and the clarification. For a spooned dessert rather than an architectural mould, use about half that.
Fish isinglassIsinglass is dried swim bladder, principally sturgeon, once the finest clarifying and setting agent in the European kitchen. It is now hard to find, mostly stocked by brewing and winemaking suppliers as a fining agent. Use gelatine; the recipe already gives it as the first option.
"Slow fire"Low heat throughout. The mixture should take its time coming to the boil so the egg proteins set gradually and trap the haze; rushed heating gives a thin, broken raft.
The flannel bagA jelly bag or three or four layers of damp, well-rinsed muslin in a sieve does the same job. Wet the cloth first so it does not absorb the jelly, and never squeeze or press let it drip. Pouring the first cloudy runnings back through the same cake of filtered egg white is what produces the "perfect limpidity".
Lemon peelPare the zest in strips with no white pith, which turns the jelly bitter over a twenty-minute boil. Ranhofer adds the juice with the whites rather than earlier.
Flavour variationsRanhofer's closing note means the jelly base is neutral. If flavouring with liqueur, add it off the heat after filtering, or the alcohol and aroma boil away. Fruit juice should be strained clear before it goes in, or it will undo the clarification.
SettingRinse moulds with cold water rather than oiling them. Four to six hours in the refrigerator for small moulds, overnight for anything large.

A Little History

This is entry No. 106 in the Elementary Methods section of Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), the enormous compendium the chef of Delmonico's assembled from some thirty years in New York's most famous kitchen. Its place among the elementary methods is telling: a clear jelly was not a dessert so much as a building block, the base for moulded fruit jellies, aspics of macedoine, and the tall glittering centrepieces that defined a formal nineteenth-century table. Ranhofer offers gelatine and isinglass as alternatives because both were then commercial products, and both had largely displaced the older, laborious practice of boiling down calves' feet for their gelatine, a change often credited with putting elaborate moulded jellies within reach of ordinary households as well as grand hotels. Isinglass, made from the swim bladders of sturgeon, had been imported into Europe from Russia for centuries and was prized for setting a jelly with almost no flavour of its own; the recipe asks for ten ounces of isinglass against eight of gelatine to do the same work.