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Tureen of Calves Feet, and Asparagus Peas

A soup made from calf's feet, asparagus peas, stock, eggs, cream, salt, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Asparagus and peas match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 808 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tureen of Calves Feet, and Asparagus Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the calf's feet

  1. Bone the calf's feet and simmer them in water to make jelly stock until tender.

  2. Remove the feet and place them in cold water to cool, then trim and cut into small pieces.

Cook the peas

  1. Boil the asparagus peas in 1 pint of stock on a slow stove until tender.

  2. Combine the peas and their cooking stock in a small soup pot with 3 pints of stock and bring to a boil.

Finish the soup

  1. Add the calf's feet to the soup pot and keep it warm by the fire without boiling.

  2. Make a liaison by whisking together the eggs and besheinell, then add it to the soup.

  3. Heat the soup over the fire, stirring constantly to prevent curdling.

  4. If the soup is ready too early, place the pot in a stewpan of hot water to keep warm.

  5. Season with coarse sea salt and add a lump of sugar if desired.

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. Asparagus + peastop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together808 recipes

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

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Asparagus + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Peas + eggtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,065 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Calves feet
Gives the soup body and a jelly-like richness as it simmers into stock.
Eggs
Thicken the liaison, giving the soup a smooth, velvety body when heated gently.
Besheinell
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the egg liaison thicken smoothly without curdling.
Asparagus peas
Provide the main vegetable flavour and tender body of the soup.

The step that matters

Adding the egg and besheinell liaison. Eggs curdle when they get too hot or are boiled. Keeping the soup below a boil while stirring constantly lets the egg proteins thicken it smoothly instead of turning grainy.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (asparagus, egg, cream, sugar):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Hazelnutfits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against asparagus, egg, cream, sugar. 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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