To Prepare Rennet, to Turn the Milk
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Remove the stomach from a calf immediately after it is killed.
Clean the stomach inside and out with coarse sea salt.
Drain and salt
Let it drain for a few hours.
Sew it up with two handfuls of coarse sea salt inside.
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
What each ingredient does
- Calf stomach
- Supplies the enzymes, chiefly chymosin, that curdle milk.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws out moisture and slows bacterial spoilage, preserving the stomach until use.
The step that matters
Salting the stomach thoroughly. Salt draws water out of the tissue and inhibits spoilage bacteria. Too little salt lets the stomach spoil before the enzymes can be used, so the salt must fully cover and fill the stomach.
“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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