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A Cheaper Meat Jelly

A gelatin made by simmering calf's foot, veal or beef neck, onion, carrot, parsley, spice, ham, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

A Cheaper Meat Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. Combine the calf's foot, neck of veal or beef, onion, carrot, parsley, spice, and ham in a large pot.

  2. Add 5 cups of water and bring to a boil.

  3. Reduce heat and simmer very slowly for 5 to 6 hours.

  4. Strain the mixture to obtain the jelly.

Finish

  1. For a richer flavor, add more ham or bones from unboiled meat, poultry, or game.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  3. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  4. Veal + carrottop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,015 recipes

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

  5. Veal + hamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,264 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Calf's foot
Releases gelatin during long simmering, which lets the stock set into a jelly.
Neck of veal or beef
Adds meaty body and savory depth to the stock as it simmers.
Ham
Contributes salty, smoky flavor to the stock.

The step that matters

Simmer very slowly. A gentle simmer draws gelatin and flavor from the bones and meat while keeping the liquid clear. A hard boil makes the stock cloudy and emulsifies fat into it, so the jelly may come out murky and greasy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, carrot, parsley, ham):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, carrot, parsley, ham. 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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