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Apple Calf's-Foot Jelly
Take four pounds of good cooking apples, core them, and stew them gently, with the thin rind of two lemons, in a quart of water, until they are reduced to a pulp. Then strain the liquid through a jelly-bag once or twice, until it is quite clear. When cool, place it in a saucepan with three pints of strong calf's-foot stock, the juice of the lemons, sugar to taste, and the shells and beaten whites of four eggs. Bring it quickly to a boil, and allow it to simmer for a quarter of an hour, being careful not to stir it. Draw it from the fire, and let it stand for another quarter of an hour. Strain it two or three times through a jelly-bag, until perfectly clear. Pour into moulds, and let it stand until next day. Time to stew the apples, about an hour. Sufficient for two quart moulds. Probable cost, 2s. per quart.
A clear jelly built on two old techniques: apple juice strained to brilliance, and a gelatine stock made from calf's feet. Both have modern shortcuts, but the clarification step is where the dish is won or lost.
- Do not stir the clarificationThe egg whites and crushed shells rise as a coagulated raft that traps the cloud. Stirring after the boil breaks the raft and pushes the sediment back through the liquid, and no amount of straining will recover it. Bring it up, leave it alone, rest it off the heat as directed.
- Calf's-foot stockSplit calf's feet, long-simmered (several hours) and reduced to the three pints called for, then chilled so the fat can be lifted off. Butchers will order feet. As a rough substitute, about 1 oz of leaf gelatine (roughly 14 sheets, depending on brand) bloomed and dissolved in 3 pints of water gives a comparable set, but foot stock varies in strength: test a spoonful on a cold saucer before moulding.
- Imperial measuresThe pint here is 20 fl oz, so the quart of water is about 5 US cups and the 3 pints of stock about 7¼ US cups. That is roughly 3 US quarts of liquid before the apples are stewed down and the pulp strained out, which accounts for the finished yield of two quart moulds.
- Which apples"Good cooking apples" means a sharp variety that collapses: Bramley, or Granny Smith with a little more sugar. Sweet dessert apples give a flabby, flat jelly and less pectin body.
- Lemon rindThin rind means the coloured zest only, pared with a peeler. Any white pith stewed for an hour will turn the jelly bitter.
- Jelly-bagA flannel or close-woven cotton bag, scalded first, hung and left to drip without squeezing. A double layer of damp muslin in a sieve works; pressing the pulp forces fine solids through and clouds the result.
- Sugar to tasteStart around 8 oz for the full quantity and add before the clarification, since the whites will not be disturbed later. Chilled jelly tastes noticeably less sweet than the warm liquid.
- Moulding and turning outRinse the moulds in cold water rather than oiling them, and chill overnight; the recipe only says to let it stand until next day. Dip the mould briefly in hot water and invert. A jelly of this strength should turn out cleanly, though how long it holds at room temperature depends on how strong the stock has come out.
- Cost note"Probable cost, 2s. per quart" is a late-Victorian retail figure and has no modern equivalent worth calculating.
Calf's-foot jelly was the standard clear jelly of the English kitchen before packaged gelatine became cheap and reliable, and it carried a double reputation: a showpiece at the dessert table when moulded and garnished, and an invalid food pressed on the sick and the convalescent, who were thought to need something nourishing that could be swallowed without effort. Boiling feet for their collagen is old and unglamorous work, and cookery writers of the period give it considerable attention because the alternative — isinglass from sturgeon air bladders — was expensive and the early commercial gelatines were of uneven quality. The recipe also teaches clarification with an egg raft, a method that transfers directly to consommé. The apple version belongs to a family of fruit jellies that stretched the costly stock with something cheap and seasonal, and the apples supply acid and fruit flavour, so it tastes of more than sweetened glue.