Definition of "gelée"

Spoon about 1 tablespoon of gelée onto the opposite side of the plate (alternatively, place a very small bowl of gelée onto the plate). Top the gelée with a scoop of sorbet and garnish with a sprig of baby basil.

2001, Claudia Fleming with Melissa Clark, The Last Course: A Cookbook, New York, N.Y.: Random House

Remove the chilled bowls of gelée from the refrigerator. Mound one-quarter of the crab salad onto the center of each bowl of gelée.

2011, Colby Garrelts, Megan Garrelts, with Bonjwing Lee, Bluestem: The Cookbook, Kansas City, Mo.: Andrews McMeel Publishing, LLC, page 113

Unfortunately, the dining public has grown to dislike gelées because few people have ever tasted an authentic meat or fish gelée. A properly prepared gelée should be deeply flavored and only slightly gelatinous; it should barely hold together when served. / With the advent of modernist cuisine in recent years, other compounds than gelatin are being used to set gelées. These gelling agents—sodium alginate and agar, to name a couple—can be used to make both cold and hot gelées, and to create foams that can be used to coat foods in the same way as gelées, effects that were unthinkable not so many years ago.

2017, James Peterson, Sauces: Classical and Contemporary Sauce Making, 4th edition, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, page 360