Skip to main content
Dessert

Calfs-foot Jelly

A gelatinous stock made from calf's foot, water, lemon, sherry, sugar, spices, and egg white.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Calfs-foot Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Cut the foot into 4-6 pieces, removing all marrow and fat.

  2. Wash and scrape the foot in warm water.

  3. Cover the foot with cold water in a deep pan.

  4. Bring the water to a boil.

  5. Rinse the foot well.

  6. Return the foot to the pan with 5 pints of water.

  7. Simmer slowly for 6-7 hours.

  8. Strain the stock through a fine sieve into a basin.

  9. Let the stock cool.

  10. Remove grease from the stock with a spoon dipped in hot water.

  11. Wipe the surface with a cloth wrung out in hot water.

Make the jelly

  1. Combine the stock, gelatin (if needed), sherry, cloves, and cinnamon in a well-lined deep pan.

  2. Wash, dry, and peel the lemon thinly.

  3. Add the lemon peel and lemon juice to the mixture.

  4. Add the egg white and crushed shell.

  5. Whisk briskly over heat until frothy and just boiling.

  6. Remove the whisk.

  7. Allow the mixture to boil up to the top of the pan.

  8. Cover and let settle for 10 minutes.

Clarify and finish

  1. Tie a linen cloth to the legs of an upside-down kitchen chair.

  2. Pour boiling water through the cloth.

  3. Carefully pour the jelly through into a scalded bowl.

  4. Add the brandy.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + clovetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 and body into the stock during long simmering, so it sets into jelly.
Egg white and shell
Its proteins gather impurities as they coagulate, leaving the jelly clear.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens flavour and helps the jelly taste fresh.
Sherry
Adds aroma and sweetness-balancing depth to the stock.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness and rounds out the acidity of the lemon.
Gelatine
Adds extra setting power if the stock is not firm enough on its own.

The step that matters

Clarifying with egg white and shell. Whisking until frothy and just boiling, then letting it settle, lets the egg white coagulate and trap cloudy particles. Boiling too hard or stirring afterward breaks the raft and leaves the jelly cloudy.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sherry, sugar, clove, cinnamon, egg, brandy):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sherry, sugar, clove, cinnamon, egg, brandy. 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.

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesCinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipes