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Calf's Feet Fricassee

A stew of calf's feet thickened with eggs, milk, butter, and flour, flavored with gravy, wine, and ketchup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 the feet in two and remove the large bones.

Make the fricassee

  1. Stew the feet in a pot with gravy, wine, and ketchup.

  2. In a separate bowl, whisk together eggs, milk, butter, and flour.

  3. Add the mixture to the pot and stir over low heat until thickened, but do not let it boil.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Ketchup + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Wine + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  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 main body, texture and rich gelatin that gives the fricassee its body.
Eggs
Thicken the sauce and add richness as they set gently with heat.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a smooth sauce that clings to the feet.
Butter
Adds fat and a smooth, rich mouthfeel to the sauce.
Milk
Loosens the egg and flour mixture and adds creaminess to the sauce.

The step that matters

Thickening without boiling. Eggs curdle and turn grainy if they get too hot, so the sauce must be stirred over low heat and kept below a boil until it thickens smoothly.

“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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