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Calf's-Foot Blanc Mange
The stock of calf's-foot jelly is reduced, to bear the addition of milk, flavored with vanilla, lemon-peel or other flavor, and is improved by the addition of a little wine or brandy.
XIV. Other Simple Dishes.
This is less a recipe than a note appended to the calf's-foot jelly entry that precedes it in the book, and it assumes you already have a pot of jelly stock on hand. No quantities are given at any point, so the proportions below are a matter of judgement rather than transcription.
- What the stock isCalf's-foot jelly stock is made by simmering split calf's feet in water for several hours until the collagen dissolves, then straining and chilling so the fat can be lifted off. It sets on its own with no added gelatine, and it is the base this entry presumes.
- "Reduced, to bear the addition of milk"The hinge of the whole instruction. The stock must be boiled down until it is noticeably stronger than a jelly you would eat plain, because the milk that follows dilutes it. Reduce too little and the blanc mange never sets; reduce too far and it turns rubbery.
- A modern substituteButcher's calf's feet are a special order in most places now. Powdered gelatine gives a comparable set: roughly 2¼ teaspoons (about 7 g, one envelope) bloomed and dissolved per 2 cups of liquid produces a blanc mange firm enough to unmould, less if you want it spoonable.
- Handling the milkWarm the milk separately and combine it with the warm, liquid stock rather than pouring cold milk into hot jelly. Do not boil the mixture once the milk is in; a hard boil can curdle it.
- FlavouringVanilla and lemon peel are both best infused into the warm milk and strained out, not stirred in at the end. Add wine or brandy off the heat, after the mixture has cooled somewhat, so the aroma is not driven off. The recipe asks only for 'a little'; an ounce or two per pint would be enough to taste.
- Setting and turning outPour into rinsed moulds or cups and chill at least four hours, preferably overnight. To unmould, dip briefly in warm water and invert. It will keep three or four days refrigerated and does not freeze well.
- YieldA pint of finished mixture would give about four small portions.
- The stray line"XIV. Other Simple Dishes." at the end is the heading of the next section of the book, caught by the transcription. It is not part of the instruction.
Calf's-foot jelly was the standard invalid food of the nineteenth-century English-speaking household, valued because it was thought both nourishing and easy on a weak stomach. Turning that same stock into a blanc mange with milk and vanilla was a way of making a convalescent's fourth or fifth serving of the week palatable. Blanc mange itself is much older, its name a form of the French blanc manger, "white food" or "white eating," and it began in the medieval kitchen as a pounded capon, almond and rice preparation efore narnarrowing narrowing, by the eighteenth century, to the sweet white moulded cream we would now recognise. Commercial packet gelatine is the reason a recipe like this one reads as a curiosity today rather than as ordinary practice.