Give it some jelly

Ultra-modish milk jellies can partner exotic North African spiced salads: the 50th anniversary edition of Good Housekeeping cookbook suggests almond jelly with orange, cardamom and pomegranate salad. And here’s an idea: jellies don’t have to be desserts. A classic luxury restaurant dish is a terrine of foie gras with Sauternes jelly offsetting the richness. ‘A jelly should be delicate enough to gently implode in the mouth,’ says John Williams, maître chef de cuisine at Claridges restaurant in London, who views jellies as the ultimate palate cleanser. He serves an exquisitely light starter of jelly of langoustine with a cream of corn foam and an indulgent dollop of caviar. For dessert he might offer a passion fruit jelly with mango and papaya rolled lightly in sugar and floated on coconut vanilla cream.

At Claridges the jelly is still hand-prepared in time-honoured fashion by simmering calves’ foot for many hours and then clarifying the stock, which eventually produces a totally pure jelly. Heston Blumenthal, idiosyncratic chef of the multi-award-winning The Fat Duck, in Bray, uses jellies widely as a textural antidote to other components of a dish: pigeon jelly with pea purée and crab cream, roast scallop with caramelised purée, jelly of Oloroso sherry and cep, pomme purée with lime jelly as a pre-dessert palate cleanser, and basil blancmange with beetroot jelly as an utterly surprising petit-four.

Quince jelly, known as membrillo, a popular sweetmeat served with cheese in Spain is enjoying something of a revival in the UK and is available from good cheesemongers and delis. It’s probable that the properties of pectin (used for jam-making) were actually first discovered when cooked quinces, combined with honey and vinegar produced a solid gel. Quince preserves were popular in 16 th and 17th century England and often cast into fancy shapes for the table because they were believed to be good for digestion. The Chinese, too, have a classic jelly dessert made using agar-agar, a type of seaweed, as the setting agent. Ken Hom remembers a childhood treat of homestyle almond jelly with orange segments. Jelly is, it seems, as timeless as it is universally popular.

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