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Calf's Feet Fricassee

A stew of calf's feet simmered with white gravy, wine, lemon pickle, curry, and thickened with an egg yolk mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Calf's Feet Fricassee

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the feet

  1. Boil the calf's feet until very tender.

  2. Cut them in half and remove the large bones.

Make the fricassee

  1. In a pot, combine the white gravy, white wine, lemon pickle, salt, and curry powder.

  2. Add the calf's feet and stew for 15 minutes.

  3. In a bowl, mix the egg yolks, milk, butter, and flour until smooth.

  4. Stir the thickening into the stew and heat gently, avoiding boiling.

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

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. White wine + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. White wine + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 feet
Provide the gelatinous body and rich texture of the stew.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce and add richness as they set gently with heat.
White flour
Thickens the liquid into a smooth, stable sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and a silky mouthfeel to the sauce.
Curry powder
Contributes the spiced aroma and flavour of the dish.

The step that matters

Stir the thickening into the stew and heat gently, avoiding boiling. Egg yolks in the thickening can curdle or turn grainy if overheated. Gentle heat lets them set into a smooth, creamy sauce.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (white wine, egg, milk, butter, flour):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against white wine, egg, milk, butter, flour. 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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