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Fried Calves' Feet

A dish of calf feet that are boiled, marinated, coated in flour, and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Fried Calves' Feet

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the calves' feet in half, boning them if desired.

  2. Boil the feet in flour and water until tender.

Marinate and fry

  1. Soak the boiled feet in a marinade of butter rolled in flour, salt, pepper, vinegar, garlic, shallots, parsley, green onions, thyme, and bay leaves.

  2. Once flavored, coat the feet in flour and fry them until golden brown.

Serve

  1. Serve with fried parsley.

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. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Garlic + parsleytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,308 recipes

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

  4. Garlic + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 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

Calves' feet
Provide the main body of the dish, becoming tender and gelatinous when boiled.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the marinade, carrying flavor and aiding browning.
Vinegar
Adds acidity to the marinade, brightening the flavor of the rich meat.
Garlic
Contributes aromatic pungency that infuses the feet during marinating.
Shallots
Add mild onion-like sweetness and aroma to the marinade.

The step that matters

Boil until tender before marinating. Calves' feet are rich in collagen, which must be fully softened by long simmering to become tender. If the feet are undercooked, they stay tough and the later frying cannot fix the texture.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, pepper, vinegar, garlic, shallot, parsley):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, pepper, vinegar, garlic, shallot, parsley. 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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