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Soup

Jelly Stock

A gelatinous stock made from calves' feet, onions, herbs, and anchovies, simmered for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Jelly Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the calves' feet

  1. Bone the calves' feet.

  2. Place the bones in a 6-quart stewpan.

  3. Boil gently for about 2 hours.

  4. Remove the meat and place it in cold water.

  5. Trim the meat for your intended use.

  6. Return the trimmings to the stock.

  7. Boil the stock until it reaches the desired strength.

Make the stock

  1. Melt the butter in a separate 8-quart soup pot.

  2. Add the fish and bones, onions, herbs, mace, celery, carrots, bay leaves, and anchovies.

  3. Add ½ pint of water and cook on low heat until reduced.

  4. Fill with hot water and boil for 3 hours, ensuring it does not boil too fast.

  5. Strain the stock through a fine sieve.

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. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Mace + carrottop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Calves' feet
Their bones and connective tissue release gelatin, which lets the stock set into a jelly.
Onions
They add savory sweetness and depth of flavor to the stock as they cook down.
Celery
Adds aromatic, vegetal flavor that forms the base of the stock.
Anchovies
Contribute concentrated savory, umami flavor that deepens the stock without tasting strongly fishy.

The step that matters

Boil gently and do not let the stock boil too fast. A rolling boil emulsifies fat into the liquid and clouds the stock, while a gentle simmer keeps it clear. Slow extraction also draws gelatin out of the bones without breaking down the flavor.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, onion, celery, carrot):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, celery, carrot. 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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