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Strong Calf’s Feet Stock Jelly

A gelatinous stock made from calf's feet, orange and lemon juices, sugar, and isinglass.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Strong Calf’s Feet Stock Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine the calf's feet stock, orange juice, lemon juice, and sugar in a pot.

  2. Add the rinds of oranges and lemon.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  4. Stir in the isinglass to help clear the jelly.

  5. If desired, add 2 or 3 Seville oranges for extra flavor.

  6. Simmer for 10 minutes.

  7. Strain the mixture.

  8. Cool the strained jelly.

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

Lemon and sugar 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 stock
Provides gelatin, which sets the liquid into a firm jelly as it cools.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the jelly its body and clear set.
Orange juice
Supplies the main citrus flavor and acidity to the jelly.
Isinglass
A fining agent that helps clear the jelly as it is heated.

The step that matters

Stir in the isinglass to help clear the jelly. Isinglass is a fining agent that binds fine particles so they can be removed when the jelly is strained, giving a clearer result. Adding it at the right point in the heating helps it do this.

“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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