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Calves' Feet Broth

A broth made by simmering calf feet with lemon peel, sweet wine, jelly, sugar, nutmeg, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg 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 ↓

Calves' Feet Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Wash the calves' feet well and soak in fresh water for 5-6 hours.

  2. Simmer in the same water with lemon peel until clear.

  3. Boil the mixture until reduced to 3 pints, then strain and set aside.

Finish the sauce

  1. Take 1 large teacup of jelly, add sweet wine, sugar, and nutmeg in a saucepan.

  2. Heat until near boiling, then gradually mix in a beaten egg and butter, stirring without boiling.

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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

  4. Nutmeg + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Calves' feet
Release gelatin, giving the broth its body and jellied texture as it simmers.
Jelly
Adds sweetness and body to the finishing sauce.
Sweet wine
Adds sweetness and aroma to the finishing sauce.
Egg (in the method)
Thickens the sauce as its proteins set gently with heat.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, glossy mouthfeel to the sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring without boiling. Once the beaten egg goes in, boiling can curdle it into lumps. Keeping the mixture just below boiling and stirring gradually lets the egg thicken it smoothly.

Swap the nutmeg

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, wine, sugar, butter. 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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