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Dessert

Calves Feet Jelly

A gelatinous dessert made by simmering calf's feet with sugar, lemon, egg whites, and sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and saffron match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 538 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Calves Feet Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the feet

  1. Slit the calves' feet in two.

  2. Remove fat between the claws.

  3. Wash the feet in lukewarm water.

  4. Place the feet in a large stew-pan.

  5. Cover the feet with water.

Make the broth

  1. Bring the water to a boil, skimming well.

  2. Boil gently for 6–7 hours until reduced to about 2 quarts.

  3. Strain the broth through a sieve.

  4. Skim off any oily substance.

  5. Cool the liquor overnight.

  6. Remove the oily layer.

Clarify and set the jelly

  1. Melt the liquor in a stew-pan with sugar, lemon peel, lemon juice, egg whites, and sherry.

  2. Whisk the mixture until it boils.

  3. Simmer for 15 minutes.

  4. Strain the mixture through a jelly bag.

  5. Pour the strained liquid back into the bag until clear.

  6. Pour the jelly into molds.

  7. Refrigerate until firm, adding ice if necessary.

  8. Add isinglass with the wine for a firmer 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. Lemon + saffrontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together538 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Saffron + spinachtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together149 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Lemon + spinachtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,109 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Sherry + saffrontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together37 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Lemon + sherrytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,273 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Calves' feet
Release gelatin during long simmering, which gives the broth its natural body and set.
Egg whites
Coagulate as they heat, trapping cloudy particles so the jelly can be strained clear.
Lump sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the sharpness of the lemon juice.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and bright flavor that cuts through the rich broth.
Sherry or madeira
Adds aroma and depth of flavor to the finished jelly.

The step that matters

Clarifying with egg whites. Egg whites must be whisked into the warm liquor and brought to a boil, then left to rest so they coagulate and collect impurities. Stirring too hard or skipping the boil leaves the jelly cloudy, and straining through a jelly bag only clears what the egg whites have gathered.

Swap the spinach

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Spinachthe original
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Arrowrootfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon, egg, sherry, saffron. 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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