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Jelly, Moscovite
Place in a small saucepan one ounce clear gelatine, with juice of a lemon, one and a half pints water, a half pound sugar, and mix on fire with wooden spoon until thoroughly melted. Strain through cloth into a copper basin on the ice, add a half gill sherry, and when the jelly begins to congeal whisk it to a froth. Pour jelly into a quart mould, lay mould on ice and let stand until thoroughly firm, remove, carefully immerse in tepid water for a few seconds, wipe all around, unmould on a cold dish with a folded napkin and serve.
A whisked wine jelly of the pre-refrigeration era, aerated as it sets so it unmoulds as a pale, foamy dome rather than a clear one. Nothing here is difficult, but the timing of the whisking decides whether it works.
- The hinge: whisk at the right momentThe jelly must be whisked when it has thickened to the consistency of raw egg white but has not yet set. Too early and the foam collapses back to liquid; too late and you break the set into curds that will never unmould cleanly. Chill it over ice, stirring occasionally, and test every few minutes.
- Gelatine quantityOne ounce is about 28 g, roughly four 1/4-oz envelopes of modern powdered gelatine; in sheet form that is somewhere in the region of a dozen to sixteen leaves, depending on grade and leaf weight. Sheet gelatine of this period is generally reckoned to have been less standardised than today's product, so if you want a jelly that quivers rather than bounces you may prefer to start at three envelopes for the three-plus cups of liquid here.
- Liquid measuresOn American measures, one and a half pints is 3 cups and a half gill is 1/4 cup, or 2 fluid ounces, of sherry. If the book's measures are imperial, both run higher: about 3 1/2 cups of water and 2 1/2 fluid ounces of sherry.
- Do not boilGelatine needs only to dissolve; sustained boiling weakens its setting power and can give a cooked, gluey flavour. Warm the mixture over low heat, stirring with a wooden spoon, and pull it off the moment no grains remain on the back of the spoon.
- Copper basin on the iceAny wide metal bowl set inside a larger bowl of ice and water does the same job. Metal chills faster than glass and the wide surface speeds the cooling, which matters when you are watching for the setting point.
- Strain itThe cloth straining is not decorative. Undissolved gelatine, lemon pulp and any scum will show as specks in a pale jelly, and grit at the bottom of the mould becomes the top of the finished dish.
- Setting and unmouldingFour hours in the refrigerator is more reliable than the ice-chest of the original; overnight is better. Dip the mould in tepid, not hot, water for three to five seconds, wipe it, and invert onto a chilled plate.
- YieldA quart mould serves six to eight as a light dessert. Whisking increases the volume, so fill the mould only after the foam has formed, and expect a little to be left over.
"Moscovite" was one of the standard classifications in nineteenth-century French confectionery for a jelly or cream frozen or set in a mould, its name gesturing at Russia in the same loose way that "a la russe" and "charlotte russe" did during the long French vogue for Russian service and Russian-sounding luxury. The technique here is to whisk a setting jelly to a froth so that it turns opaque, the same pot of stock jelly serving for two effects: strain one half clear for a glittering moulded jelly, whip the other and call it moscovite. The reliance on ice is worth noting. A recipe that specifies a copper basin on the ice and a mould laid on ice was written for a kitchen with an ice-house or a regular delivery from the ice wagon. Sherry, lemon and sugar were the standard flavourings for such jellies, strong enough to survive the dilution of three cups of water.