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Calfs-foot Stock

A clear stock made by simmering calf's feet with water, wine, sugar, lemon, and egg whites, then clarified.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: White wine and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,832 recipes. Both carry myrcene, which smells balsamic, herbaceous. The science ↓

Calfs-foot Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the feet

  1. Cut each calf's foot into four pieces.

  2. Blanch the pieces in cold water and bring to a boil, then discard the water and wash the feet well.

Make the stock

  1. Place the feet in a saucepan with 4 pints of water and boil gently for 5 hours.

  2. Strain the stock from the bones and set aside until the next day.

  3. Remove the fat carefully to clear the stock.

Make the jelly

  1. To make calf's-foot jelly, add white wine, lump sugar, lemon rind, lemon juice, and the whites and shells of the egg to the stock.

  2. Clarify and strain the mixture.

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. White wine + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  2. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. White wine + sugartop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,586 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon 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
Provide gelatin from collagen in the bones and connective tissue, which sets the stock into a jelly.
Egg whites and shells
Attract particles as they coagulate, clarifying the stock into a clear liquid.
Lump sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the lemon juice.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and helps the jelly taste fresh.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the jelly.

The step that matters

Remove the fat carefully to clear the stock.. Fat left on the chilled stock stays in the jelly and makes it cloudy and greasy. Lifting off the solidified fat before reheating gives a clear, clean-tasting result.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Applefits less well
  4. Plumfits less well

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