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Baked or Stewed Calf's Foot

A calf's foot stewed or baked in milk and water with mace, lemon rind, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Isabella Beeton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Baked or Stewed Calf's Foot

1 person

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the calf's foot.

Stew

  1. Stew or bake it in the milk and water with the other ingredients for 3 to 4 hours.

  2. Optionally add onion and a small quantity of celery if approved.

  3. Stir in half a teacupful of cream just before serving.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

167Calories
9 gProtein
8 gFat
17 gCarbs

Counts 4 of 6 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 4 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0
Macenot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Isabella Beeton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Milk + macetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,346 recipes

    Shared aroma: sabinene (woody, terpenic).

  5. Mace + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,315 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

Mace and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Calf's foot
Provides gelatine, which gives the stewed dish a rich, set body as it cooks.
Milk
Adds richness and a mild sweetness to the stewing liquid.
Cream (in the method)
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel just before serving.

The step that matters

Stewing for 3 to 4 hours. A long, gentle stew is needed to slowly break down the connective tissue and release gelatine. Rushing it or boiling hard can leave the foot tough and the liquid cloudy or unevenly set.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, lemon, pepper):

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, lemon, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.

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