Skip to main content
Main

Calf’s Feet with Forcemeat

Calf’s feet stuffed with forcemeat, coated in breadcrumbs, fried, and served with mayonnaise sauce, fried parsley, and croutons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Calf’s Feet with Forcemeat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean and boil the calf's feet until tender.

  2. Remove the bones and fill the cavity with forcemeat.

  3. Wash the feet with the egg yolk.

Coat and fry

  1. Roll the feet in bread crumbs.

  2. Dip them in oiled butter and roll again in fine bread crumbs.

  3. Fry in boiling lard until golden brown.

Serve

  1. Serve topped with fried parsley, Mayonnaise sauce, and croutons of fried bread.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Bread + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Egg yolk
Brushed on as a wash, it helps the crumb coating stick and gives the surface a golden colour.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned outer crust when fried.
Oiled butter
Helps the second layer of fine crumbs adhere and adds richness to the crust.
Forcemeat
Fills the cavity, adding moisture and a savoury, tender filling.

The step that matters

Fry in boiling lard until golden brown. The fat must be hot enough to crisp the crumb quickly. If it is too cool, the coating absorbs fat and turns greasy before it browns, and the filling may warm unevenly.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, bread, butter, sauce):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, bread, butter, sauce. 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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipesOatmeal BreadOatmeal Bread51 recipes