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Jelly Soup

A clear broth made from calf's feet, veal, and herbs, thickened with sago and optionally flavored with sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Jelly Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. In a large pot, combine the calf's feet, veal, onion, herbs, and cold water.

  2. Boil for 4 hours, reducing the liquid to 3 quarts.

  3. Strain the broth and let it cool.

Prepare the jelly

  1. Return 2 calf's feet and the veal to 1 quart of the broth, season, and refrigerate.

  2. Remove fat from the remaining broth, bring to a gentle boil, and skim.

  3. Soak the sago in ½ cup of cold water for 2 hours, then add to the broth.

  4. Simmer until tender, then pour out.

  5. If desired, add ½ cup of pale sherry before serving.

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

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

  2. Celery + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Clove + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Calf's feet
Release gelatin into the broth, giving the soup its jelly-like body when chilled.
Veal
Adds meaty flavour and body to the broth.
German sago
Thickens the broth as its starch swells and cooks until tender.

The step that matters

Remove fat from the remaining broth, then skim. Fat left in the broth can cloud the clear jelly and make it greasy, so it should be removed before the broth is brought to a gentle boil and skimmed.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, onion, clove, celery, lemon, pepper, sherry):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, onion, clove, celery, lemon, pepper, sherry. 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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