How much gelatin to add to jelly: proportions. How to soak and dilute edible gelatin for jelly, regular and instant, and when to put in jelly: instructions for use

It is very difficult to imagine modern cooking without gelatin. Cakes, sweets, marshmallows, mousses, jellies and jellies are unlikely to be prepared without this additive. Although for the first time food gelatin in its pure form appeared not so long ago - in the 19th century.

However, many housewives, especially after the first unsuccessful experience, are afraid to deal with gelatin - either it will not dissolve completely, or it will not harden. Indeed, in order for the result to turn out as it should, it is important to know how to work with it correctly. And there are a lot of nuances here - what to dissolve, at what temperature, what proportions, how to make it so that it turns out without lumps, etc. I, too, at first did not understand well what gelatin was and how to make friends with it. But, believe me, there is nothing complicated!

Types of gelatin

This indispensable ingredient is made either from animal products (tendons, cartilage, skins, etc.), or from fish waste. The latter is more expensive and less common, since the manufacturing technology is more complicated.

By the way, vegetarians and representatives of some nationalities may refuse dishes with gelatin. But agar-agar and pectin are suitable for everyone - they are made from plant products.

There are 3 types of edible gelatin on the shelves of our stores:

in granules;
in powder;
in the form of thin plates.

It is impossible to say which one is better - each has its own advantages. Leaf gelatin swells faster. In granules it is cheaper, and in powder it takes less time to dissolve. Here it is more correct to build on a specific recipe and your personal preferences.

Proportions: why observe

The main rule of successful jelly, aspic, etc. - Compliance with the ratio of dry gelatin and liquid. In general, there are instructions on each pack, but it’s better to remember:

for dense jelly, it should be taken at the rate of 40-50 g per 1 liter of liquid;
for the usual, 25-30 g will be enough.

If you are preparing very sweet jelly or pork jelly, then it is better to increase the amount of gelatin by 5-10 g. The fact is that sugar and fat have a bad effect on gelling qualities.

Compliance with proportions is also important during soaking. In order for gelatin to swell properly, we take 10 parts of liquid for 1 part of dry matter. If you take less, you get just a clot that looks like a jellyfish. If you take more, then the taste of the finished dish may turn out to be not so rich.

In what water for how long to soak

An equally important question is at what temperature to soak and dissolve gelatin. Almost everywhere, the recommendations are the same - soak in cold, warm up to dissolve, but do not boil. True, before dissolving the sheet, you must first squeeze out a little, and only then send it to the liquid.

Indeed, soaking in cold water is indispensable. In granules it swells in 40 minutes, in sheets - in 10-15, in powder - 5-10. If you pour hot water immediately, then the gelatin will stick together and it will take more time. This does not apply to instant powder. You can not soak it at all - it is perfectly diluted with hot water.

The swollen gelatin is dissolved by heating the mixture and adding liquid, depending on the recipe - broth, juice. It is better to do this in a water bath or over low heat, stirring constantly.

By the way, gelatin can be soaked not only in water - in milk, in broth, in cream, this substance also swells well. But it will take twice as long. And in this case it is better not to experiment with boiling.

Everywhere they write that it is strictly forbidden to boil gelatin, they say, peptide compounds are destroyed. This is a myth, I will say right away. Practice shows that even prolonged boiling does not affect the gelling properties. Perhaps the ban on boiling was simply generalized, since some products are really better not to boil, for example, sour cream. Or maybe the fact is that a concentrated solution of gelatin burns quickly and then the smell spoils the whole dish.

Application

Gelatin for jellied or aspic

Let's move on to the recipes. Let's figure out for a start how to dilute gelatin for jelly, jelly or aspic:

soak gelatin in cool water (remember the proportions and time);
add 1 cup of broth and heat, stirring, until the grains disappear completely;
filter the solution through a sieve or gauze;
we introduce a gelling solution at the end of preparation.

Do not forget that if we are preparing a dish of fatty meat, then we take dry gelatin a little more than the norm, but for aspic or jellied chicken, fish, standard 40-50 g and 1 liter is enough.

I will dwell separately on the question “What to do if the aspic (jelly) has not frozen?”. Everything is simple here - we calculate the required amount of dry gelatin, soak it and dissolve it in the usual way. We boil our failed aspic and pour in the gelatin solution. Well, then as usual - cool and in the refrigerator. I recommend adding a little salt and spices so that the reanimating procedure does not affect the taste in any way.

cooking jelly

For jelly, the scheme is the same - soaked, dissolved, filtered and combined with juice, broth, cocoa, milk, etc. There are secrets in this simple procedure.

The easiest way is to take instant gelatin and pour it into a hot liquid, stirring. Then you do not need to neither filter nor warm up.

Some fruits contain special substances that destroy the very peptide compounds that make it possible to obtain jelly. Kiwi, pineapple, raw papaya are not suitable for jelly. But if these fruits are boiled, then the substances break down into simpler ones, which do not affect gelatin in any way.

Gelatin for cream

For cakes, buttercreams and more, gelatin often needs to be dissolved without the use of water. Then soak in either cream or milk. The time for the usual one is 1.5-2 hours, for the instant one - 20-30 minutes. Then warm in a water bath, stirring. Strain through a sieve and refrigerate.

While the gelling mixture is cooling down, make the cream. In a ready-made cream, in a thin stream, with constant stirring, we introduce the dissolved gelatin. In this case, I prefer to use the blender at a low speed.

We soak the leaf in water and then, after squeezing it well, we immediately send it to the heated mixture. Mix thoroughly several times. It is better to do this in a water bath.

In this case, a microwave oven is simply indispensable. We place the liquid with gelatin for 30 seconds in the microwave, the power is maximum. The gelatin should completely dissolve. If not, send another 10-20 seconds.

We cool correctly

In the end, I will dwell on the cooling of dishes with gelatin. There is no way to do without this stage. Just put it in the fridge for a few hours.

Some, seeking to speed up the solidification, are sent to the freezer. You can't do that - it's not ice cream! The fact is that the water that is in the gelling mixture freezes, and ice crystals violate the integrity of the consistency. It turns out a loose, unattractive outwardly substance with grains of ice.

Soak video:

As you can see, in order to make friends with gelatin, you need to know something. But just a little practice, and you can be sure - jellies, aspics, soufflés and everything else will definitely turn out. And every time it gets better and better!

Jelly, jelly and aspic are traditional cold dishes of the festive menu. Gelatin jelly recipes include instant edible gelatin. In what proportions should gelatin be diluted for jelly to get hard jelly, or how to make jelly soft? The dry powder dissolved in water serves as a thickener for jelly from a rich broth with pieces of meat - chicken, pork, beef - the added gelatin accelerates the process of hardening of the cold appetizer, making homemade jelly dense, with a beautiful transparent jelly.

How to cook jelly with the addition of gelatin? How to dilute gelatin for jelly and how much should be added to 1 liter of gelatin broth so that jelly freezes “as it should”? How and when to add a thickener at the beginning of cooking aspic or at the end of cooking, what are the proportions of gelatin?

These questions most often arise among housewives who do not know how to cook jelly at home with pork gelatin, in what proportions and how to cook a quick one with the addition of gelatin.

Advice from the Miracle Chef. To make the taste of jellied meat real, for its preparation it is better to use several types of fresh meat or gelling parts of fish - heads, tails, fins. Diluted instant gelatin cannot be boiled, otherwise the broth will not thicken.

Jelly Recipes: Cooking Rules

Without gelatin, it is believed that real jelly, properly cooked, should be cooked for a long time and solidify on its own, gradually thickening. At home, a cold transparent dish with gelatin, prepared in a quick way, is called. Edible gelatin is used in various cases when it is necessary to fix an unhardened jelly or when there is little time for a long preparation of a rich broth for jelly.

The recipes for jelly, aspic and jelly, in essence, the composition of the ingredients of meat or fish brew, are not much different, the only difference is that the aspic is made more colorful than jelly and jelly.

In the Urals, jellied meat is usually called jellied meat, according to the rules of cooking, aspic is prepared from clarified broth with gelatin, jellied meat is often boiled from a pig. They use the ears, the skin of a pig as a basis for cooking, in the classic version, lytki (shanks), cow hooves (or beef legs) are added to the brew.

What is the difference between jelly and jelly? When cooking according to a home recipe, the jelly is made, following the rules, from beef - legs with hooves, head, tail, shank. But very often in culinary recipes for cooking with gelatin, jelly is found from pork, chicken, beef.

Each national cuisine has its own recipes for traditional cold dishes with pieces of meat in frozen broth. In Germany, it is brawn, in Georgia and Armenia, hot meat soup from beef legs on a rich broth, familiar from recipe books as khash - in fact, liquid jelly, which is not allowed to harden and is served hot on the table.

So, despite the divisions in terminology, it is the aspic that is made with a thickener, jelly and jelly can be made without gelatin and with instant gelatin, if you don’t want to mess around at the stove for a long time.

What is gelatin

Gelatin is a sticky substance, an animal protein obtained from tendons, ligaments of animals, skin, obtained from fish scales, bones. Due to its gelling properties, edible gelatin is used as a thickener in cooking and has a wide range of applications in the food industry. As a thickener, dissolved crystals are added to the cream during preparation, used in, put to harden.

The food product is sold in dry form in plates or in the form of a free-flowing yellowish powder. Instant gelatin is found on sale in granular bags, packaged in weights of 10-15 grams, 25 grams or more.

Using food granules at home when cooking is simple and easy, the main condition for success is to observe the proportions of the liquid and follow the rules for diluting the gelling agent.

How to dilute gelatin for jelly in broth

Before preparing gelatin for jelly, dry food powder must be diluted in broth. The desired hardness of the jelly will depend on the proportions in which gelatin should be diluted for jelly. In order to properly dilute (dissolve) gelatin, we need:

broth (or water).
Fine mesh sieve or gauze.
Enameled bowl.
Cup.
net capacity.

How to breed

Pour the granules into a glass, fill with cold boiled water, stir and soak. Leave for 60 minutes for the gelatin to swell.
Pour the swollen mixture into a saucepan and put on low heat.
We heat and dilute the gelatin, stirring constantly until it is completely dissolved, bring to a boil, but do not boil. You can't cook it!
After dissolution, the solution should be filtered. To do this, spread gauze on clean dishes or install a sieve and filter the gelling solution.
After filtering, the clarified solution is mixed with broth, cooked specifically for jellied meat.

How to add gelatin to jelly

Before adding gelatin to the jelly, you need to remove the meat from the cooked hot broth. Gelatin should be added to the jelly by pouring the gelling solution in a thin stream, while mixing it with hot broth.

If the finished jelly has not frozen, add gelatin from the bag, the proportions are usually indicated by the manufacturer on the bag. Bring the broth to a boil again and send the dish to the refrigerator to solidify again.

How much gelatin per 1 liter of jelly: how to calculate the proportions

It is not difficult to calculate the proportions, 20 g of gelatin should be added to 1 liter of jelly, provided that the jelly should not be hard - soft, trembling, which can be eaten with a spoon. If you want to make hard jelly so hard that you can cut it into pieces with a knife, then the proportions of gelatin per 1 liter of jelly must be increased to 40 g.

Remember! Excess gelling agent can strongly harden the jelly, turning it from a delicious cold snack into a spoiled meal.

Recipe for cold chicken breast

The lightest, resembling a transparent aspic, is a dietary jellied chicken breast (chicken fillet) with gelatin. You can festively decorate the dish with boiled carrots, slices,.

It is easier and more convenient to cook broth with pieces of meat when there is one in the house. How to cook jellied chicken breast with gelatin? Simply, the recipe is for 8 servings of cold appetizer.

Ingredients

chicken breast - 500 g;
thigh, drumstick or leg - 300 g;
instant gelatin - 20 g;
carrots - 1 pc.;
onion - 1 head;
garlic - 5 cloves;
bay leaf - 1 pc.;
salt.

How to cook jellied chicken breast with gelatin at home

To make the broth rich, it is better to add a leg, thigh or drumstick to the breast. We wash the bird and clean the vegetables: carrots, onions, garlic.
We put the prepared products in the bowl of the multicooker (or in the pan, if we cook jelly from chicken breast with gelatin on the stove according to this recipe). We turn on the Soup, Buckwheat or Pilaf, Rice, Kholodets mode. Cooking time will be about 90 minutes.
Dissolve gelatin in a glass of water, give it time to swell and disperse. Strain the broth through a sieve. We take out the fillet, meat and vegetables, separate from the bones and cut into pieces. We spread the pieces of meat and vegetables for decoration on the bottom of the form (plate), mix with chopped garlic.
We combine the broth with gelatin. Warm up on the stove and fill the chicken with gelatin broth.
After cooling, place in the refrigerator and let the dish harden well, harden.

Delicious jelly with gelatin is ready; We serve the dish on the table, cutting it into pieces with a knife.

Jellied stew and gelatin

As you know, homemade jelly is cooked for a long time, but it is easy to speed up cooking at home. The fastest preparation is jellied stew with gelatin, the recipe allows you not to cook the broth, use ready-made meat stew (canned food). Thanks to gelatin, canned meats quickly harden. With beef stew, the jelly is delicious, low-fat, as with chicken, from pork - the taste is for everyone.

Components

beef stew - weighing 325 grams (one can);
granulated gelatin - 10 grams;
garlic - 3 cloves;
salt;
ground black pepper.

How to cook a quick jellied stew with gelatin

Dilute gelatin in half a glass of cold water, leave for 60 minutes until it swells.
Add hot water to a full glass, stir.
Open a jar of stew, divide the canned food into two parts.
We spread the stew in portioned forms, crush large pieces of meat with a fork into small pieces, pour the juice from the jar into molds, remove the fat.
Add garlic cloves passed through a garlic press into the molds.
Pour the gelatin diluted in water, if the jelly is too thick, add a little hot water.
Salt, pepper and mix. We send it to the refrigerator to harden for 1.5 hours.

A cold dish is quick and tasty, you can use homemade or store-bought stew, the basic rule for making jelly is high-quality stew according to GOST with pieces of meat without veins.

Note!

Pork jelly with gelatin

In order for the pork jelly to freeze well, it is better to cook a cold dish with gelatin. Aspic from pork and gelatin freezes perfectly, lovers of a large amount of meat in aspic and cartilage will definitely like the recipe for cooking with pork knuckle.

It will take

pork knuckle - 500 g;
pork - 500 g;
gelatin - 20 g;
carrots - 1 pc.;
onion - 1 pc.;
garlic - 3-4 cloves;
bay leaf - 2 pcs.;
salt to taste;
ground black pepper;
black peppercorns.

How to cook pork jelly with gelatin

Before cooking pork, the pork knuckle must be soaked in water so that the skin softens, and it is possible to scrape hard-to-reach places, clean them of blood, and remove dirt from the skin. Usually, pork meat is soaked in water overnight in order to start cooking jellied meat in the morning.
The meat, cleaned of small bones, is lowered into a saucepan, poured with cold water so that the water barely covers the meat products.
Bring to a boil, without leaving the stove, in order to have time to remove the noise (scum) in time, otherwise the jelly will turn out to be cloudy and not transparent.
As soon as foam begins to appear on the surface of the water, it must be immediately removed with a slotted spoon.
We reduce the fire on the stove and cook the pork at a slow boil for 4-5 hours. During cooking, the fat that appears on the surface of the broth is removed, cleaning the broth.
We dilute gelatin for jelly in a glass of water, leave it on the kitchen table for 50-60 minutes.
In the meantime, we lower the whole peeled carrots and onion into a saucepan with broth. To enhance the taste and aroma, put the bay leaf and peppercorns, add some salt.
Cook meat with vegetables for about an hour or more. In total, homemade jelly is cooked for 6 hours, plus it takes 4-5 hours for it to solidify.
We take out the pork parts with bones from the finished jelly, separate the meat from the bone and cut into pieces.
Strain the slightly cooled broth into a clean saucepan. We send chopped meat to the broth, bring it to a boil. Add chopped garlic, pepper, pour in the dissolved gelatin, mix.
Pour into portioned forms or pour the jelly into ordinary plates, not forgetting to decorate the dish until it is frozen.
We take it out to a cool place or, after cooling to room temperature, put it in the refrigerator.

Serve on the festive table as an independent cold appetizer with horseradish, mustard or in combination with potatoes.

Turkey jelly

Low-calorie turkey jelly is usually prepared from turkey wings, thigh or neck. There is a lot of meat in the finished jelly and few calories, it tastes like a classic cold dish, as a result of cooking it turns out a dish like a turkey aspic and a traditional jelly with garlic, it can be eaten even by those who follow the figure and count calories. Turkey is a dietary meat, healthy and tasty.

Cooking jellied turkey jelly at home is easy, learn how to cook tasty and proper jelly with gelatin and turkey wings, learn from the recipe. An assistant for quick preparation of jelly can be a pressure cooker or a slow cooker.

Ingredients

turkey meat - 1 kg;
instant gelatin - 15 g;
water - 2.5 liters;
garlic - 3-4 cloves;
bay leaf - 2 pcs.;
salt - 5 grams;
ground black pepper - half tsp

Recipe for cooking jellied turkey step by step

Parts of the turkey - wings, neck - cut into pieces and pour water.
We put the pot on the fire and let it boil.
As soon as the foam begins to rise, remove with a slotted spoon. Cook for 3.5-4 hours over low heat.
Readiness is determined by the meat, as soon as it is separated from the bones, the broth with pieces of meat is ready.
Add bay leaves, salt and pepper, cook for another 15 minutes.
We take out the meat, strain the broth.
Soak gelatin in cold water in the proportions indicated on the package.
Pour gelatin into hot broth, heat until hot, but do not boil.
On a plate, we disassemble the turkey meat for jelly, separate it from the bones and skins (if you like the skin, you can leave it). Cut the turkey into small pieces.
Put the turkey meat in deep plates, pour the broth.
Put a pinch of chopped garlic in each plate, set to harden in the cold.

The calorie content of one serving of such jelly is 91 kcal, from this amount of products you can cook about 12 servings of jelly for the New Year, treat your home with a diet dish at any time.

Jellied fish

Fish jelly or homemade fish jelly with gelatin is the easiest way to make homemade aspic. Fish for jelly is taken red, usually pink salmon or carp, pike or silver carp. The recipe for fish jelly, jelly ingredients, often includes fish heads, tails, fins and scales - gelling products.

This is how jelly is prepared from fish without gelatin. But to prepare fish jelly with gelatin, it is enough to buy trimmings of sea, river fish, a whole carcass or steaks, even fillets to cook delicious jelly, sometimes tastier than meat.

Required

fish - 500 g;
for broth: fish trimmings, fins, bones, fish heads;
gelatin - 3 tsp;
water - 800 ml;
carrots - 1 pc.;
bulb;
parsley root;
sea salt;
laurel leaf - 1 pc.;
black pepper allspice peas;
freshly ground black pepper.

How to cook fish jelly with gelatin: recipe

We wash the fish products for the broth (so far without fish), take out the gills from the heads to remove the bitterness from the finished dish.
Fill the fish set with cold water and, bringing to a boil, remove the foam.
Reduce heat and cook for about an hour. In the meantime, prepare the fish: wash, clean, gut.
Strain the broth, discard the bones.
Add fish to the strained broth in a saucepan, the fresh pulp of which was chosen for jelly.
We put carrots, onions, parsley root, laurel, allspice.
Soak the gelatine in cold water following the directions on the package.
10 minutes before the end of cooking the broth with fish, add salt and pepper.
Drain the broth into a sieve lined with gauze, substituting a saucepan under the bottom.
We select the bones from the boiled fish, cut the flesh into pieces and transfer them to a clear broth, combine with gelatin. Stir and heat the pan until the gelatin granules are completely dissolved.
Cool the jelly to room temperature, pour into portioned plates, molds. To serve on the festive (New Year's table) we decorate with olives, lemon slices.
Spilled jelly is sent to freeze in the refrigerator. We serve the jelly on the table, like a jellied fish, chilled.

A delicious combination with fish jelly will make Korean,.

How long does jelly freeze with the addition of gelatin

How long does jelly with gelatin freeze in time? In order for the jelly to freeze well, water cannot be added during cooking, it is necessary to cook on low heat so that the liquid evaporates slowly, if the broth at the end of cooking is half as much as at the beginning - this is a normal process and properly cooked jellied meat.

Aspic with gelatin hardens quickly, it will take less than an hour to completely harden, provided it solidifies on the middle shelf of the refrigerator. In order for a cold dish to infuse and acquire a rich taste, it is better to prepare it in advance, on the eve of the festive feast.

Food and drink May 8, 2014

Kholodets is a traditional cold appetizer of Russian cuisine. The dish is prepared infrequently. Basically, it is served at the festive table.

In the seventeenth century, a dish was called jelly, which was prepared in wealthy Russian families on the second day after a big feast. To do this, the remains of meat products from the first day of the holiday were collected together, crushed and, filled with broth, cooled in a glacier. The appearance of such food did not cause much appetite, so the servants were fed it.

Aspic

In times of great popularity of the French way of life in Russia, many foreign specialists were invited to the country, including chefs. French cuisine had a similar dish called galantine. It was based on a thick, rich broth made from several varieties of meat and game, to which ready-made meat products ground into minced meat were added. Brought to taste with spices and raw eggs. The resulting mixture was covered with a press and kept in the cold.

Based on the principle of preparing galantine, French chefs partially changed the technology for preparing jellied meat, as a result of which jelly appeared. Thanks to the clarification of the broth and the introduction of lemon zest and saffron into it, ordinary jelly began to look unusually beautiful and appetizing. The new dish was considered exquisite, it was served in rich houses. They began to make jelly not only from meat, but also from fish products: sturgeon, sterlet, pike.

Traditional jelly remained on the menu of ordinary people. They cooked it in the winter between large posts. In order for the jelly to solidify well, meat legs (shanks), heads, ears and lips were necessarily put in the broth. These products contain a large amount of gelling substances, due to which the jelly is very strong.

Modern Russian cuisine has diversified the old dish with unusual ingredients. Today, no one can be surprised with jelly from a rooster, lamb, river fish. Seafood dishes, vegetables and fruits look a little exotic. Since they do not contain substances that contribute to solidification, a special additive, gelatin, has to be introduced into dishes.

This is a viscous protein obtained by prolonged digestion of animal collagen (connective tissue). The product is healthy and contains phosphorus, calcium, nitrogen. The presence of glycine in gelatin, a natural source of energy, improves the vital activity of the body.

Translated from Latin, gelatin (gelatus) means “frozen” or “frozen”. When dried, the product looks like a transparent granular yellowish powder without taste and smell. The food industry also produces gelatin plates.

The scope of gelatin is quite wide. In the food industry, it is used in the manufacture of confectionery: marmalade, marshmallows, jelly. In public catering, gelatin is used to speed up the process of solidification of jelly, jelly, jellied dishes.

It is worth considering separately how to cook jelly with gelatin. For a modern person, such a dish as jelly is still a festive meal. But not at all because of the high cost of products, but because of the long cooking process. In the current fast-paced life, there is simply not enough time for a long and slow digestion of the broth with its subsequent unhurried solidification. To speed up the process of preparing a delicious dish, gelatin comes to the rescue.

How to dilute gelatin for jelly?

Usually on the packaging there are instructions for the correct use of the instant powder. It should be diluted with chilled boiled water in a ratio of one to five, and then left to swell for ten minutes. Then add to the hot broth and mix thoroughly.

How to dilute gelatin for jelly correctly? It is important to always remember that the prepared gelatin solution should be introduced into the boiling broth in a thin continuous stream. The liquid must be vigorously stirred to prevent the formation of lumps. Pouring the broth for solidification should be only after cooling to room temperature. To make the dish appetizing and tasty, you need to know how to dilute gelatin for jelly correctly.

Not a bad option

It is worth considering another useful method. So, how to add gelatin to jelly? Dissolve the gelatin sheet in cold water for half an hour. Then place in a water bath and heat until completely dissolved.

Pour the resulting solution into the prepared meat broth. Stirring continuously, bring the liquid to a boil. Care must be taken to ensure that the gelatin does not stick to the bottom of the dish. Pour boiled meat with strained broth and send to cool.

To prepare a delicious and transparent chicken jelly, you need to know how to dilute gelatin for jelly. It is necessary to insist dry powder in cold broth for an hour. Then garlic, spices, salt are added to the solution, after which it is diluted with a liter of broth and heated without boiling.

Important note

To understand how much gelatin should be added to the jelly for normal solidification, you should always try the resulting solution. One spoonful of melted gelatin should be mixed with a small amount of broth and dip your fingers into it. If they stick together and separate with little effort, then there is enough of everything in the jelly. An excess of gelling agent can spoil the jelly, turning it into a rubber mass.

Dosing of gelatin for jelly

What is gelatin and how should it be diluted

Gelatin is an organic substance, a product of thermal or chemical processing of collagen (one of the main components of connective tissue). It is a transparent viscous mass, colorless or yellowish. Edible gelatin is obtained from the skins, hooves, bones and tendons of animals, as well as from the bones and scales of fish. On sale it is found in the form of thin plates or in the form of dry granules.

Dilute gelatin according to the standard scheme. First, it is poured with a small amount of water or broth, allowed to swell, then heated until completely dissolved and mixed with additional liquid, bringing to the final volume. After that, the components of the dish are poured with the resulting gelatin solution.

Do not bring gelatin to a boil, otherwise the liquid will not thicken.

In what proportions should gelatin be diluted for jelly

You will need:

1 liter of water or stock
20-40 grams of gelatin
cheesecloth or fine sieve
capacity
cold meat
boiled carrots or boiled eggs (optional)

When cooking jelly, you need to dose gelatin, based on which jelly you like best. For example, if you prefer the jellied meat to be rather soft, trembling, like jelly, you need to take about 20 grams of gelatin per 1 liter of liquid. If you want the aspic to be solid, take at least 40 grams per liter of liquid. And if you like very hard aspic, which will have to be cut with a knife, then you need to take about 60 grams of gelatin per liter of water or broth.

The easiest way to prepare a gelling solution for jelly is by following the following scheme. When the meat for the jellied meat is already cooked, measure the required amount of gelatin (based on the above calculations), pour 1 glass of cold water and leave to swell for 50-60 minutes. During this time, remove the meat from the broth, cut it into small pieces or split it into fibers with a fork and place it in a bowl for future jelly. Strain the broth through cheesecloth or a fine sieve.

Housewives often cook both jelly and aspic. And both of these dishes are very in demand in any season of the year. But they differ in the method of preparation and composition of the products. You need to know the fact that in fact gelatin is not added to jelly if it is cook according to the rules and from the components necessary for jelly. These should be jelly-forming meat products, namely legs, head, drumstick and even chicken wings.

Gelatin is used when aspic is cooked, that is, meat is cooked there, and not those products that are used to make jellied meat.

Well, if you are not sure that the cooked jelly will harden by you, then you introduce gelatin into the broth when the jelly is already cooked and the broth has cooled down. he will swell.

And then you lay out the finished meat products on plates, and then you fill them with broth in which gelatin was dissolved.

I don’t add gelatin to the jelly, because the broth usually becomes a jelly-like mass itself. It's just very important to cook pork ears, legs, tail, knuckle. They give the broth the opportunity to thicken and solidify. Well, add the meat you like.

However, if you still do not rely on your broth, then dilute the gelatin (within one pack, if there is a lot of broth), it is better with the same broth, let it stand and swell.

Then lay out the meat in forms, add your favorite spices (black pepper, garlic), whoever loves, add boiled carrots and half a hard-boiled egg.

During this time, let the broth cool down. Then enter the swollen gelatin into it, stir well, let stand and pour into molds.

Usually gelatin is added to jelly during cooking, it is at this moment that gelatin dissolves easily, but you can also add gelatin to ready-made, but not frozen jelly if gelatin is dissolved separately in water.

Properly cooked jelly does not need gelatin, because it is cooked from meat and bones with a lot of cartilage. It is from the cartilage, the shank that the hardening gelling mass is obtained.

But they almost don’t put cartilage in the aspic so that the aspic is transparent, therefore gelatin is needed there for solidification.

Gelatin is chemical and natural. Natural has a taste of jelly and is not suitable for fruit jellies, and besides, you need to remember that you can’t boil it! From this, it also loses its gelling properties a little, and most importantly, it acquires the taste of glue.

Gelatin is poured with boiled water in advance to swell, so after adding it, the taste of the broth will be less salty.

Therefore, it is best after boiling the strained broth, when the bones from the jelly or aspic have already been removed and it is salted as it should, let it boil for 10 minutes and pour a couple of glasses to cool. Then dilute gelatin in them and let it brew for at least half an hour.

But then adding it to the broth is still better after the aspic or aspic is ready and the stove is turned off. Added, mixed and wait five minutes to disperse. And only now you can pour into molds.

When preparing jellied meat, you can do without gelatin at all, unless of course you want to make this dish from ordinary water. If your jelly contains beef and pork legs (chicken legs are also suitable) and you cook all this over low heat for four to five hours, then you won’t need gelatin at all, as the broth will harden without it.

Well, if you still want to add it, then you need to do this at the very end of cooking, that is, before you pour your brew into molds.

Usually gelatin is not added to jelly. It freezes perfectly by itself, unless, of course, everything is cooked correctly. What kind of dish is jellied meat? Everyone will tell you that this is a frozen meat broth. A transparent jelly-like structure is given to it by astringents contained in pork or beef bones.

Aspic is used as an appetizer before main courses. Its variety is aspic, which is slightly different in taste from jelly, because. it is prepared mainly from fish (pike).

The canonical jelly was prepared only from beef. For such a jellied meat, a beef head, brains and legs were used. However, over time, the set of products for jelly has undergone significant changes.

Today, jelly is prepared from a variety of product sets. The recipes are countless. For the meat part of jelly beef, veal, pork, meat of domestic and wild poultry are used.

Various vegetables (carrots, onions, garlic, celery), herbs and spices are used as flavoring additives.

However, the most important component of meat jelly was and remains pork or beef legs, ears, heads. It is these ingredients that make it possible to prepare a real strong jellied meat without the addition of gelatin.

After all, jelly prepared with the addition of gelatin turns into aspic, and this is a completely different dish!

Choosing the right pork or beef heads or legs

In order for your jelly to turn out strong and harden well without adding gelatin, you will definitely need pork or beef heads or legs.

It should be borne in mind here that pork jelly is somewhat more cloudy and fatty than beef jelly.

Determining with additional types of meat

if you use pork legs for a gelling effect, then for the meat part, take beef tenderloin and a little chicken or turkey meat.

Boil the jelly in a saucepan or in a pressure cooker.

Aspic is not boiled in small pots, so you will need a capacity of at least five liters. Or even seven, so that all the meat fits and there is enough broth.

And immediately take care of another container where you will pour the already prepared jelly. E

For the vegetable part of the jelly, onions, carrots, herbs and celery or parsley stalks are used.

Vegetables are cooked with meat.

There are two ways to bookmark vegetables. In the first method, vegetables are laid at the very beginning of cooking and removed after 1 1.5 hours.

Otherwise, vegetables are laid 1.5 hours before the end of cooking. Due to the different ways of laying vegetables, the taste of the finished dish gets slight differences.

Usually vegetables are laid whole and already peeled, but if you want to give your jellied meat a pleasant golden hue, then you can put onions without peeling, but only by cutting off the roots and getting rid of the topmost layer of the husk.

When cooking vegetables, make sure that they do not boil and do not turn into gruel!

You can use any spices for jelly, depending on your taste and desire. Most often, bay leaves, black, white and allspice peas, cloves, dill seeds are used to prepare jellied meat. It is best to lay all the spices at the very beginning of cooking aspic, along with the meat.

An hour before the end of cooking, the jelly must be salted. This is the most important secret of cooking jelly, since lightly salted jelly is not at all tasty fresh.

You need to salt so that the jelly is a little oversalted - when it hardens, the taste of the jelly will be excellent!

The duration of cooking jellied meat should be from 6 to 12 hours.

The longer your jelly is cooked, the more saturated its taste and aroma will turn out, and the better and stronger its consistency will turn out.

After the meat is cooked, take it out on a separate dish and let it cool slightly, and strain the remaining broth through cheesecloth or a fine sieve into a separate bowl.

Now comes the most important moment in the preparation of jelly, to which you can involve the whole family. Disassembly of meat.

It is best to disassemble the meat with your hands, gently rubbing the fibers between your fingers and tearing them. Thus, you can always be sure that even the smallest fragments of bones cannot get into your jelly, and the dish itself will turn out soft and tender.

To determine whether the jelly is cooked correctly or not, drop the broth on your fingers: if the fingers stick together, then the jelly will harden without gelatin.
In order for the jelly to freeze without adding gelatin, it is necessary not to add water to the broth during cooking. Immediately pour more water and cook over low heat - so that the broth does not boil much.

In order for the gelatin to make the jellied meat jelly-like, it is necessary that it be boiled in the broth, that is, the gelatin must be added before the jellied mass boils, then the gelatin will completely dissolve and, as a result of cooling, will solidify in the desired form.

in theory, it is not needed there, but if, of course, you doubt that it will harden well, it happens that there is more meat than bones, then after cooking everything, disassemble the meat, strain the broth and add the already dissolved gelatin to the container where it will solidify.

I don’t add gelatin to jelly, just when cooking it, in addition to meat, I add pork knuckles - this is the lower part of the leg, but not the hooves.

When the meat is boiled and easily falls behind the bones, we filter the broth, disassemble the meat and put it in containers into which we will pour the broth. Finely chop the garlic and add to the meat. We dilute the gelatin according to the instructions, add to the broth that has cooled down a little, mix and pour the molds. We let it cool by removing it in a cold place and the jelly is ready.

If the jelly does not freeze without gelatin (not enough rich bones, a lot of meat, not bones, the bones did not cook enough time, the water boiled away during cooking and had to be added, it turned out not enough bones and meat for a large amount of water - there can be many reasons and they are very diverse) you can add some gelatin. As a rule, 0.5-1 sachet of gelatin is enough for a large 3-5-liter jellied pot. Pre-diluted according to the instructions, the gelatin is added to the pot with the broth and mixed just before the broth is poured into molds. It is better when the meat and bones have already been taken out of the broth and sorted into shapes.

Gelatin should be added to the broth, when there is no longer meat in it, that is, in the disassembled meat prepared for pouring. Gelatin must first be soaked for half an hour. You can soak in the same broth, pouring a couple of glasses. Next, add gelatin to the broth, stir well, bringing to a boil. And after that you can pour it into bowls with meat.