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Dessert

Wine Jelly

A gelatin made from calf's feet, sugar, cinnamon, sherry, brandy, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sherry and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,209 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Wine Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the calf's feet

  1. Chop each calf's foot into four pieces.

  2. Wash the pieces in a basin of clean water.

  3. Place the pieces in a stew-pan and cover with cold water.

  4. Bring to a boil.

  5. Remove from heat and let sit on a paper on the table.

  6. Transfer the pieces to a basin of cold water and wash again.

  7. Empty the stew-pan and wash it well.

Make the stock

  1. Return the pieces to the stew-pan with 5 pints of cold water.

  2. Bring to a boil again.

  3. Skim often.

  4. Let it boil gently for 5 hours.

  5. Strain the liquid through a fine sieve into a basin.

Set the jelly

  1. Cool the basin in a cool place until the stock sets into a jelly.

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. Sherry + brandytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Cinnamon + brandytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,199 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Cinnamon + sherrytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together649 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Calf's feet
Release gelatin into the water, which sets the stock into a jelly as it cools.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the savoury stock flavour.
Sherry
Adds wine flavour and a slight acidity to the jelly.
Brandy
Adds aroma and warmth to the finished jelly.

The step that matters

Let it boil gently for 5 hours. A gentle simmer slowly extracts gelatin from the feet without clouding the stock. A hard rolling boil would emulsify fat and cloud the liquid, leaving a less clear jelly.

“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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