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Calves' -Feet Broth

A clear broth made from boiled calves' feet, sweetened with jelly, wine, sugar, nutmeg, and finished with egg yolk, butter, and lemon zest.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and lemon 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

Make the broth

  1. Boil the calves' feet in 3 quarts of water until reduced by half.

  2. Strain the broth and set it aside.

  3. Remove the fat from the broth.

Finish and serve

  1. In a saucepan, combine the jelly, sweet wine, sugar, and nutmeg; heat until ready to boil.

  2. Gradually mix a little of the hot mixture into the yolk of the egg.

  3. Stir in the butter and combine everything, but do not let it boil.

  4. Grate fresh lemon zest into the mixture before serving.

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. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  2. Wine + lemontop 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. Butter + lemontop 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 into the broth, giving it body and a natural set when cooled.
Egg yolk
Thickens the warm mixture into a smooth, custard-like texture and adds richness.
Butter
Adds fat for a rounder mouthfeel and a smooth, glossy finish.
Jelly
Adds sweetness and body to the warm wine mixture.
Sweet wine
Adds sweetness and a fruity aroma to the mixture.

The step that matters

Tempering the egg yolk. Adding the hot mixture to the yolk gradually raises its temperature slowly, so the egg does not scramble. Keeping the mixture below boiling, as the recipe says, prevents the yolk from curdling and keeps the texture smooth.

Swap the nutmeg

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

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

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