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Calves’ Feet Broth

A clear broth made by simmering calves' feet, sweetened with wine and sugar, finished with egg yolk, butter, and lemon peel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Calves’ Feet Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Boil the calves' feet in 3 quarts of water until reduced to 1½ quarts.

  2. Strain the broth and let it cool to remove the fat.

Finish and serve

  1. In a saucepan, combine ½ cup of the sweet wine, 1 teaspoon of sugar, and ¼ teaspoon of nutmeg, then heat the mixture until just before boiling.

  2. Gradually beat in the egg yolk and 1 tablespoon of butter, stirring continuously.

  3. Add 1 teaspoon of grated fresh lemon peel before serving.

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. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

  4. Nutmeg + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Calves' feet
Release gelatin into the water as they simmer, giving the broth body and a silky texture.
Egg yolk
Thickens the warm wine mixture and enriches it as it is beaten in gradually.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the finished broth a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.
Sweet wine
Adds sweetness and aroma to the warm base that the egg yolk is beaten into.

The step that matters

Gradually beat in the egg yolk. Adding the yolk slowly while stirring keeps the proteins from scrambling in the hot liquid, so the mixture stays smooth and thickens evenly.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Nutmegthe original
  4. Parsleyfits about as well

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