Jellies à la Moscovite

Gelées à la Moscovite (salted-ice frosted jellies) teach one true thing: cold is an ingredient, and the cook must stop it at exactly the right moment. The jelly should leave its mould with a thin, snowy coat around a clear, tender centre. Another few minutes in the freezing mixture turns delicacy into a block.

The original assumed brigade quantities, tightly closing metal moulds, twenty-five pounds of ice, freezing salt, and saltpetre. For one cook, one stove, one evening, four small stainless-steel moulds, two kilograms of crushed ice, and one part coarse salt to five parts ice do the same work. Saltpetre goes because the smaller moulds and salted ice provide sufficient cold without it. The chemical and the brigade bulk were scaffolding; the sealed mould and sharply timed freezing are the dish.

The entry specifies a treatment rather than one fixed flavour, so clear apple and lemon provide the ordinary jelly, pale enough to show its frosted coat. Cool it until faintly syrupy before sealing the moulds, then stay beside the ice. Pull them when the centres quiver together and the outer edge has just turned cloudy. That judgment is the step that matters most.