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Milk Jelly From Cow-heel, and the Meat Served with Onion-sauce

A milk jelly made by stewing cow heel with milk and cinnamon, then sweetened and set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,655 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Milk Jelly From Cow-heel, and the Meat Served with Onion-sauce

Oven, in the book's wordsA very slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Buy a dressed cow-heel from a tripe shop.

  2. Cut the cow-heel into small pieces on a board.

  3. Place the pieces in an earthen jar or saucepan with the milk and cinnamon.

Stew

  1. Cover the jar with a lid.

  2. Place a piece of paper over the lid. Tie it tightly.

  3. Put the jar in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) to stew for at least three hours.

  4. If no oven is available, place the jar by the side of the fire to stew.

  5. Remove the jar from the oven.

Strain and set

  1. Take off the lid.

  2. Strain the milk into a basin.

  3. Sweeten the milk according to taste.

  4. Set aside until the jelly is firm.

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 + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Cow-heel
Its collagen-rich connective tissue breaks down during long stewing and sets the milk into a jelly.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that becomes the jelly as it stews and cools.
Cinnamon stick
Adds a warm, aromatic flavour to the milk during stewing.

The step that matters

Stewing for a long, gentle time. The cow-heel's connective tissue needs prolonged, low, moist heat to break down into gelatin. If the heat is too high or the time too short, the milk will not set into a firm jelly.

“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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