Now the jelly is served at the table as a festive traditional dish, but if we turn to history, this food was not always considered worthy of festivities in Russia. In rich houses, after the feasts, the remnants of food gathered, filled with broth, cooked and cleaned in the cold. Such second-rate food was given to the servant. French chefs gave a new taste and grace to the dish, as soon as the fashion for everything French came to our country.
Pick your recipe
For real connoisseurs of jelly, adding gelatin to a dish is considered bad form. So now we’ll focus on how to cook aspic without gelatin.
What to cook aspic
The key to delicious jellied meat is properly selected meat ingredients. It is believed that without the addition of beef legs, the dish may not freeze. If there is an opportunity to cook jelly with them, then do not neglect it, if it is not possible, then you should not be upset. That the jelly froze, pork legs are quite enough. Only there is one caveat - legs relative to other meat should be at least a third. For example, for 700 grams of legs with hooves (this is mandatory), you should take no more than one and a half kilograms of other meat. You can take absolutely any meat - veal, beef, chicken. Some do not recognize poultry meat in jelly. But here it is not for everybody. It is simply important to understand that a large amount of meat will not allow jelly to freeze. For better gelling, the meat should be skinned and veined.
How to cook aspic
Before cooking jellied meat, it is necessary to chop, peel and grind the skin, if necessary, and then be sure to soak it for several hours in cold water. You can soak the meat all night.
After soaking, the meat is washed, folded into a cauldron or pan and poured 5 cm higher with water and put on fire. After boiling, the fire must be reduced, there will be a constant formation of foam, it should be constantly removed. The process lasts 10 minutes, after which it stops completely.
Then cover the pan and minimize the boil. Even if the water boils, you should not add it.
How to cook aspic
After the jelly boils, it should be cooked on a small fire for about 5 hours. After this time, uncleaned but thoroughly washed carrots, onions, celery roots or parsley are added to the broth. From spices, allspice and peas are added, necessarily a bay leaf. Salt to taste, approximately it can be a teaspoon of rock salt.
If the water has boiled away significantly, you will have to add it from the kettle, as the liquid will be needed. Cook the jelly for another hour and a half. In general, aspic is cooked for at least six hours.
When the jelly has cooked, filter the broth through cheesecloth or through a colander. We throw out unnecessary roots, carrots and onions, cut the meat into small pieces with our hands. In a meat grinder, it is better not to scroll, otherwise there is a risk of leaving the bones. Garlic crushed through a press is added to the chopped meat. In the prepared dishes, we lay out the meat component of the jelly, then fill it with broth. Everything is very neatly mixed.