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Calf's Foot, Boiled with Parsley and Butter
Thoroughly clean two calf's feet, divide them at the joint, and split the hoofs. Put three rashers of bacon into a stewpan, with a piece of butter the size of an egg, a large onion stuck with five or six cloves, the juice of a lemon, and a little salt and pepper. Care must be taken not to put too much salt, as the bacon will probably supply what is necessary. Lay the feet on the bacon, and cover the whole with one pint of stock. Let them simmer very gently for three hours or more; then take out the feet, put them on a hot dish, and pour some parsley and butter over them. (See PARSLEY AND BUTTER.)
A long, gentle braise that relies on gelatine rather than meat for its texture. The whole thing hinges on the simmer never rising to a boil and on the feet being genuinely clean.
- Sourcing the feetCalf's feet are a butcher or halal/Latin market item, not a supermarket one; pig's trotters are the usual substitute and behave much the same. Ask for them split at the joint and the hoof cracked, which saves you a cleaver.
- Cleaning is not optional"Thoroughly clean" covers scraping any remaining hair and scrubbing between the toes. The recipe does not call for it, but a preliminary blanch (cover with cold water, bring to a boil, drain, rinse off the grey scum) will keep the braising liquid from turning cloudy and muddy-tasting.
- Rashers of baconBacon of the period was often dry-cured and saltier than modern streaky. Three slices of unsmoked streaky or a couple of ounces of pancetta gets closer to the intent, and the recipe's own warning stands: only a little salt at the start, and taste before adding more.
- Butter the size of an eggAbout 2 oz, or 4 tablespoons.
- Keep it below a boilThree hours at a bare tremble draws the collagen out slowly and leaves the feet intact enough to lift onto a dish. A rolling boil shreds them off the bone and turns the liquid greasy. The recipe uses a stewpan on the hob; if your burner will not hold a low enough flame, a low oven with the lid on may be steadier.
- One pint of stockAn imperial pint is 20 fl oz, about two and a half US cups, and even that will not cover two split feet in most pans. Use a narrow, deep pan, or add water until the feet are just submerged; top up during cooking if the level drops.
- Parsley and butterThe cross-reference is to the standard English sauce: melted butter thickened lightly with flour, thinned with water or the cooking liquid, and finished with a large handful of chopped parsley. Strained braising liquid makes a far better base than water.
- Yield and servingThe recipe gives no yield; two feet will stretch to two as a main course, or four as part of a larger meal. Serve very hot on warmed plates -- the gelatine sets fast and goes tacky as it cools.
- The leftover liquidStrain and chill it and you have a firm jelly, though one carrying the bacon, clove, onion and lemon of the braise rather than a neutral one. Worth keeping for aspic or for enriching a stew. Plain calf's-foot stock was the household setting agent of the period.
Calf's feet earned their place in nineteenth-century kitchens less for eating than for what could be boiled out of them: gelatine, which set the jellies, blancmanges and aspics that a well-run household was expected to produce before commercial leaf and powdered gelatine became cheap and reliable. Calf's-foot jelly was also standard invalid cookery, prescribed for the convalescent well into the twentieth century. Serving the feet themselves plainly boiled with parsley and butter, as here, is the frugal other half of that economy once you have paid for the feet, the meat and skin should not be wasted. The onion stuck with cloves and the finishing of melted butter with parsley are both stock English techniques of the period, which is why the book simply cross-references the sauce rather than repeating it.