Name: Rennet
Ingredients: 1 calf's stomach (fourth stomach, or abomasus); 6 to 7 ounces coarse sea salt

Rennet

Ingredients

1 calf's stomach (fourth stomach, or abomasus)
6 to 7 ounces coarse sea salt

Directions

Remove all hairs from the calf's stomach and wash it clean.
Replace the curd in the stomach with the salt.
Set the stomach aside in a cool dairy for one week.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

What each ingredient does

Calf's stomach (abomasus): Supplies the enzymes that clot milk into curd.
Coarse sea salt: Preserves the stomach and draws out moisture during curing.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.