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Jelly Stock

A gelatinous stock made from calf's feet, sugar, lemon, and egg whites, used to set jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Wine and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,157 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Jelly Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Boil the calf's feet in 2 quarts of water for 5 hours, skimming off the fat.

  2. Strain the liquid and let it cool until it hardens, then remove any sediments.

Clarify the jelly

  1. In a pan, melt the sugar with ½ pint of water, wine to taste, lemon rind, lemon juice, and the jelly stock.

  2. Whisk the mixture over heat until it boils, then strain it through a flannel jelly-bag.

  3. Return the first thick liquid to the jelly-bag until clear.

Set and unmold

  1. Pour the clear jelly into a mold and refrigerate until set.

  2. To unmold, dip the mold lightly in warm water.

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + winetop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together9,581 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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
Their collagen releases gelatin during long simmering, which allows the liquid to set into a jelly.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the sharpness of the lemon juice.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and bright flavor that cut through the rich gelatin.
Eggs
Egg whites and shells bind impurities as the mixture boils, helping the jelly clarify when strained.

The step that matters

Straining through the flannel jelly-bag. Cloudiness comes from fine particles and impurities. Boiling with egg whites makes them coagulate and trap debris, so the jelly must be strained slowly and returned until it runs clear. Rushing this leaves the jelly cloudy.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Applefits about as well
  4. Figfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, wine, egg. 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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