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To Prepare Rennet to Turn the Milk

A method for making rennet from a calf stomach using herbs and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove 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 ↓

To Prepare Rennet to Turn the Milk

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stomach

  1. Clean the stomach of the calf with salt inside and out.

  2. Let it drain for a few hours, then sew it up with 2 handfuls of salt inside.

  3. Alternatively, stretch it on a stick, well salted, or keep it in salt water.

Make the infusion

  1. In a pot, combine 2 quarts of fresh spring water with hawthorn tops, sweet briar, rose leaves, 1 stick of cinnamon, 40 cloves, 4 blades of mace, sprig of knotted marjoram, and 2 tablespoons coarse sea salt.

  2. Boil gently until reduced to 3 pints, then strain.

  3. When warm, pour the liquid over the stomach.

  4. Slice a lemon into the mixture and let it stand for 2 days.

  5. Strain again and bottle for use.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Marjoram + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together957 recipes

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

  3. Clove + marjoramtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Cinnamon + marjoramtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together93 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Stomach of a calf
Supplies the rennet enzymes that curdle milk, the active agent of the preparation.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture and preserves the stomach while it is cleaned and steeped.
Lemon
Adds acidity to the liquid, helping to extract flavour and aid preservation.

The step that matters

Letting the stomach stand in the warm liquid for 2 days. The stomach must be kept well salted and fully covered so that spoilage bacteria do not take hold during the long rest. Pouring the liquid over while it is warm, not hot, helps extract the flavours without damaging the enzymes the stomach supplies.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rose, cinnamon, clove, marjoram, lemon):

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rose, cinnamon, clove, marjoram, lemon. 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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