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Meat Jelly
A simple meat jelly may be made of a quart of clear, strong meat stock; heat this and stir into it a quarter of a package of gelatine that has been dissolved in cold water enough to cover it. Bring to a boil, and add half a gill each of vinegar and sherry; remove at once from the fire, and strain without squeezing through a flannel jelly bag. This jelly may be poured around cold boil tongue or cold chicken, or may be put by itself in a mould to form.
This is a plain aspic, meant to be spooned around cold sliced tongue or chicken or set alone in a mould and cut up for sandwich work. It stands or falls on the strength of the stock.
- Half a gillA gill is half a cup, 4 fl oz, so half a gill is 2 fl oz, or 1/4 cup (4 tablespoons). The recipe wants 1/4 cup vinegar and 1/4 cup sherry for the quart.
- A quarter of a package of gelatinePeriod packages were not standardised; a box of about an ounce, subdivided, is the usual reading, which would make a quarter package roughly 1/4 oz, or about one modern envelope (2 1/4 teaspoons, 7 g). On that reading it is a light set for a quart of liquid, and it assumes the stock is gelatinous enough to firm on its own; a stock made from knuckle, feet or calf's head may need no more, while a thin stock will need more to unmould cleanly.
- Bloom, then dissolveCover the gelatine with cold water and let it stand until it swells before it goes near the hot stock. Dropping dry granules into hot liquid gives you rubbery lumps that never disperse.
- Do not hold it at a boilThe instruction to remove it from the fire at once is the hinge. Prolonged boiling weakens gelatine's set, and it drives off the sherry, which is there for flavour rather than body.
- Clear stock means clarified stock"Clear, strong" is doing real work here. A cloudy stock gives a cloudy jelly, and the flannel bag only catches solids, not haze. Clarify with beaten egg white and shell before you begin if the stock is not already bright.
- Strain without squeezingSqueezing the bag forces fine sediment through and clouds the finished jelly. Let it drip, however long it takes, and discard the last murky runnings.
- A flannel jelly bagSeveral layers of damp muslin or a fine cheesecloth-lined sieve does the same job. Rinse the cloth in cold water and wring it out first so it does not absorb the first cupful.
- Setting and yieldA quart fills a 1-litre mould and gives roughly eight to ten servings as a garnish. Chill at least four hours, or overnight for a jelly firm enough to chop for sandwich filling. To unmould, dip the mould briefly in warm water.
Savoury jellies were a fixture of the cold table in the late nineteenth century, when a well-set aspic was proof that a kitchen could make proper stock and clarify it. Before commercial gelatine, the body came from calves' feet, knuckle bones or isinglass; feet and bones in particular required hours of boiling and skimming, and packaged gelatine put moulded jellies within reach of households without a trained cook. The splash of vinegar and sherry is standard for the period, sharpening a stock that would otherwise taste flat once cold dulls it.