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Calves Feet Fricasseed

A stew of calf feet simmered in veal broth, mace, lemon peel, cream, flour, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Calves Feet Fricasseed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the feet

  1. Boil the calves' feet in a shallow pan until tender, being careful not to break them.

  2. Place them in cold water for 1 hour.

  3. Divide the feet and simmer in weak veal broth for 30 minutes with mace and lemon peel.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the mace and lemon peel, then add cream, flour, and butter.

  2. Serve with parsley and butter 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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

  4. Veal + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,580 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Calves' feet
Provide gelatin-rich connective tissue that thickens the broth and gives the fricassee body.
Cream
Adds richness and smoothness, softening the flavour and giving the sauce a silky texture.
Flour
Thickens the cream and broth into a smooth sauce that coats the feet.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a silky mouthfeel in the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Boil the feet without breaking them. Boiling vigorously or too long can cause the delicate skin and connective tissue to split and fall apart. Gentle simmering keeps the feet intact while the collagen slowly softens into gelatin.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, lemon, cream, flour, butter):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, lemon, cream, flour, butter. 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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