When I was a kid, my grandmother would cook turkey soup with lots of bones for hours until it was reduced to a few generous cups of liquid. Then pick the meat off the bones and lay it out in a shallow glass casserol pan. Pour the remaining concentrated broth over top, cool then chill it. What came out of the fridge the next day was an aspic with the meat and carrots suspended in an almost clear gelatin. You could almost bounce a quarter off the surface of it. We’d slice it and serve it with horse raddish as part of the first course of a large holiday family meal.
This is not a dish I’ve ever seen on any menu or in any deli in NA. It’s shame. I have fond memories of it. I’d make some but the damn kids would probably just turn their noses up at it.
My former father-in-law used to make the Polish or Bohemian version of head cheese, which is called salceson, but he called it something like “soltza”, probably a bastardization of the German word sülze. It was disgusting.
Never liked it when I was a kid, because it was too sour (and it looked funny), but I’m getting peckish by reading your description. I’m pretty sure that you can get Aspic in most German supermarkets.
I just had tomato aspic for the first time last week at a fancy benefit luncheon (courtesy of my boss). I didn’t know what it was and one of the older ladies had to tell me that it was a staple of entertaining in the 50s and 60s. I tried it but can’t say it made an impression. It was like frozen tomato paste. Apparently it’s making a comback in the old moneyed South. :dubious:
When I lived in Coney Island, Brighton Beach was filled with Russian restaurants. Me and hubby went to one with a large group of friends and co-workers. There was live entertainment, a bottle of vodka at every table and lots and lots of aspic. It was. . . not very tasty. There was one with a whole boiled egg in it. Another with what looked like sardines. Another with sprigs of rosemary. All more hideous than the last.
My dad has made sturgeon in aspic for Passover dinner. The fish is fine, the “fish jello” element is absolutely vile beyond all human reckoning. For the record, my father is an excellent cook. Cold slithery fish goo just ain’t my thing.
Tried it at New Years when I was in Russia, to be polite, but not my thing. More a mental thing than a taste issue, I suspect; I just can’t get into the idea of meat jello.
Is your family Eastern European by chance? My Polish-born mother makes that sort of aspic all the time, except usually with chicken. Peas, carrots, parsley, etc., are the vegetable and herbs (and sometimes hard boiled egg slices). It was usually served with vinegar poured over the top and eaten with some rye bread (or just on its own.) I love the stuff, but almost every non-Eastern European I know will not come anywhere near it and think it’s the most disgusting looking foodstuff ever. Meh. More for me.
In Polish, it was called galareta or galaretka (diminutive form.) Here is a typical picture. The gelatinized part is often made with pork bones, too. In Hungary, kocsonya is the equivalent dish, made with pork, and a traditional New Year’s food.
I find there is an odd taste that comes from rendering bone matter in making a classic aspic that you can avoid by using agar-agar or knox unflavored gelatin instead of making the gelatin by rendering the body of the critter in question.
All you need to do is use something like commercially made vegetable or critter based stock [which is not made the same way, so it doesn’t have the weird bone taste] and make it single, double or treble strength [depending on how resilient you want it to be] or as a buddy of mine refers to it as an animal jello mold.
Though I really admit, I don’t like fish based aspic - what I did last time was make a vegetable and lemon aspic for a salmon aspic instead of a salmon broth aspic. I decorated it in layers - you make a bowl of ice, and set the aspic mold in it, and pour in the just barely warm aspic. Let it sit long enough to set about an eight or quarter inch thick layer of aspic, then pour the liquid aspic back into your sauce pan. Arrange the really large flat parsley leaves on what will be the rim of the mold. Add another layer of aspic, then lay in the cold fillet of salmon. Add the balance of the aspic to the mold and let the whole mass chill out in the fridge. You may have to dip the mild briefly in hot water to unmold it. Really the 1800s had some seriously elaborate cooking that you really don’t see any more, and the whole stack food and dribble sauce is crap compared to some of what la Varenne was doing.
I really need to start doing more elaborate cooking again and take pictures this time around, especially since we are going to start playing with molecular cuisine.
