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A Cheaper Meat Jelly

A gelatin made by boiling calf's foot, veal or beef, onion, carrot, parsley, spice, ham, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

A Cheaper Meat Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine calf's foot, veal or beef, onion, carrot, parsley, spice, and ham in a pot.

  2. Add 5 half pints of water and boil very slowly for 5 to 6 hours.

  3. For a stronger jelly, add more ham or any bones from unboiled meat, poultry, or game.

  4. Use the cooking liquid from fowls or veal instead of water if available.

  5. Avoid stewing vegetables in the jelly for better preservation.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  4. Veal + carrottop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,015 recipes

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

  5. Veal + hamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,264 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Calf's foot
Adds gelatin from collagen, which sets the cooled liquid into a jelly.
Neck of veal or beef
Contributes meat flavor and additional collagen to the broth.
Lean ham
Adds savory, smoky flavor and can strengthen the jelly when more is added.

The step that matters

Boil very slowly for 5 to 6 hours. A gentle simmer extracts collagen into gelatin without clouding the liquid. Vigorous boiling emulsifies fat and cloudies the jelly, weakening its clarity and appearance.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, carrot, parsley, ham):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, carrot, parsley, ham. 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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