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Calf's-feet Broth

A clear broth made from calf's feet, sweetened with jelly, wine, sugar, nutmeg, and finished with egg yolk, butter, and lemon peel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Calf's-feet Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Boil the calf's feet in 3 quarts of water until reduced to half.

  2. Strain the broth and set it aside.

  3. When ready to use, remove the fat from the broth.

Finish and serve

  1. In a saucepan, combine the jelly, sweet wine, sugar, and nutmeg, and heat until just before boiling.

  2. Take a small amount of the hot mixture and gradually beat it into the yolk of the egg.

  3. Add the butter and stir everything together without boiling.

  4. Grate fresh lemon peel into the mixture before serving.

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. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  2. Tea + lemontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together610 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Wine + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Wine + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Tea + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together202 recipes

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

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, giving the broth body and a jelly-like set.
Egg yolk
Enriches and thickens the warm mixture, giving it a smooth, creamy texture.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth, rich mouthfeel and gloss.
Jelly
Adds sweetness, fruit flavour and gelling body to the mixture.
Sweet wine
Adds sweetness and aromatic flavour to the warm mixture.

The step that matters

Stir the yolk without boiling. Egg yolk thickens gently at moderate heat, but if the mixture boils after the yolk is added, the egg proteins can scramble and the custard turns grainy. Tempering the hot mixture into the yolk first helps prevent this.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tea, wine, sugar, egg, butter, lemon):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Gingerfits about as well
  4. Thymefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against tea, wine, sugar, egg, butter, 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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