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Jelly Stock

A gelatinous stock made from calf's feet, sugar, lemon, and egg whites, set into a jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Wine and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,157 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Jelly Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Boil the calf's feet in 2 quarts of water for 5 hours.

  2. Skim off the fat as it rises and strain the liquid when the feet are soft.

  3. Let the liquid cool until it hardens, then remove sediments.

Clarify and set

  1. Melt sugar in a pan with ½ pint of water, wine, lemon rind, lemon juice, and the egg whites and shells.

  2. Add the jelly stock and whisk until it boils.

  3. Strain through a flannel jelly bag, returning thick liquid to the bag until clear.

  4. Pour the clear jelly into a mold and cool.

  5. To unmold, dip the mold in warm water briefly.

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. Wine + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + winetop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together9,581 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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
Release gelatin as they simmer, giving the stock its setting power.
Egg whites and shells
Trap cloudy particles as they cook, clarifying the jelly into a clear liquid.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and brightness that balance the sugar and rich stock.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps round out the sharp lemon flavour.

The step that matters

Strain through a flannel jelly bag until clear. Clarification depends on the egg whites binding cloudy particles as the liquid boils. Rushing the straining leaves the jelly cloudy, and returning the thick liquid to the bag lets it run clear.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, wine, egg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, wine, egg. 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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