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Preserve

Method of Preparing Rennet, As Practised in England

A method for preparing rennet from a calf's stomach using salt, herbs, and lemon with cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,150 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Method of Preparing Rennet, As Practised in England

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stomach

  1. Remove the curd from the calf's stomach and wash it thoroughly.

  2. Salt the stomach inside and out, leaving a white coat of salt.

  3. Place the stomach in an earthen jar and let it stand for 3–4 days to form a pickle.

  4. Hang the pickle up for 2–3 days to drain it, then re‑salt it.

  5. Return the stomach to the jar, cover it tightly with paper pierced with a large pin.

  6. Let the covered stomach sit until needed.

Make the liquid

  1. Boil the sweet‑brier, rose, and bramble leaves in 1 gallon of water with 3–4 handfuls of salt for 15 minutes.

  2. Strain the liquid and let it cool.

  3. Pour the cooled liquid into an earthen vessel.

Steep and strengthen

  1. Add the prepared stomach and a lemon studded with cloves to the vessel.

  2. Let the stomach remain in the liquid to strengthen the rennet.

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 + clovetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Rose + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,174 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Rose + clovetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together410 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Calf's stomach (maw)
Supplies the natural enzymes that clot milk, which is the purpose of the rennet.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture and preserves the stomach during the pickling stage.
Sweet-brier leaves
Add aromatic flavour to the steeping liquid.
Lemon
Adds acidity and aroma to the steeping liquid.

The step that matters

Salting and draining the stomach. Enough salt must coat and penetrate the stomach so it pickles rather than spoils. Draining and re-salting then concentrate the preserving effect while the enzymes are kept intact.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rose, lemon):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Rosemaryfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rose, lemon. 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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