To Prepare Rennet to Turn Milk
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the stomach
Remove the stomach from a calf immediately after it is killed.
Clean the stomach inside and out with coarse sea salt.
Let it drain for a few hours.
Salt and store
Sew it up with two handfuls of coarse sea salt inside.
Stretch it on a stick and salt it well.
Keep it in wet salt and soak a piece for use, washing it in fresh water for repeated use.
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 stomach
- Supplies the rennet enzymes that curdle milk into a set curd.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws out moisture and preserves the stomach during drying and storage.
The step that matters
Salting the stomach thoroughly. Salt draws out moisture and inhibits spoilage bacteria. If the stomach is under-salted, it can rot before the enzymes are preserved, so the salt must reach all surfaces and the inside.
“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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