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Calf's Foot Broth
Wash carefully one calf's foot, and put it into a saucepan with three pints of water, the rind of a lemon, a lump of sugar, and a salt-spoonful of salt. If a knuckle-bone of a ham can be put with it, it will be an improvement. Let these simmer gently together until the liquid is reduced one half, skimming it very carefully from time to time. Then pour it out, and let it stand aside to get cold, so that the fat may be entirely removed. When this has been done, put it back into the saucepan, let it boil, add the beaten yolks of two eggs, and stir the liquid again over the fire for a few minutes until it thickens; but on no account allow it to boil. This is a very nourishing broth. If it is preferred, the calf's foot may be boiled in milk and water. Time, three hours. Probable cost, one calf's foot, 4d. to 8d. Sufficient for a pint and a half of broth.
An invalid's broth from the era when gelatine came from the animal rather than a packet. The whole point is the calf's foot, and the whole risk is the egg yolks at the end.
- Never let it boil after the yolks go inThe two beaten yolks thicken the broth as a liaison, and boiling will curdle them into strings. Take the pan off the direct heat, ladle a little of the hot broth into the yolks first to temper them, then return the lot and stir over low heat until it coats the spoon.
- Sourcing a calf's footAsk a butcher to order and split one; it will not be on display. A split veal knuckle or two pig's trotters give a comparably gelatinous broth if calf is unavailable, though pork changes the flavour.
- MeasuresThree pints is British Imperial, so about 1.7 litres or 7 US cups. A salt-spoonful is roughly a quarter teaspoon. A "lump of sugar" means one cube, about a teaspoon.
- Reduction and timingThree hours at a bare simmer should take the liquid down by half; a lid left ajar helps you control the rate. Keep it at a tremble rather than a rolling boil, or the broth clouds and the fat emulsifies in instead of rising.
- The ham knuckleA smoked ham hock or bacon bone adds body and a good deal of salt. If you use one, hold back the added salt entirely and season only at the end.
- Lemon rindPare it thin with no white pith, which turns bitter over three hours of simmering. Remove the rind before the broth goes to chill.
- Chilling is not optionalLetting the broth stand until fully cold is how the fat is removed, and a foot yields plenty. The recipe does not specify how long, only that it must be cold enough for the fat to be taken off entirely. The set broth will be firm as jelly when cold, which is correct; it liquefies on reheating.
- Yield and servingAbout a pint and a half, or three to four cups, which is two or three servings. Serve hot in a cup with a little more salt and pepper; the milk-and-water variant makes a blander, more soothing version.
Calf's foot broth belongs to the substantial nineteenth-century literature of invalid cookery, the branch of household writing devoted to feeding the sick, the convalescent and the newly delivered. Its virtue was understood in terms of nourishment concentrated into a small, easily swallowed quantity: the foot gives up collagen that sets the liquid to a jelly, and the egg yolks add fat and protein without requiring chewing. The same principle produced calf's foot jelly, its sweetened and wine-flavoured cousin, which appears in cookbooks and in novels of the period as a familiar gift to a sickroom. The technique -- long gentle extraction, chilling to lift the fat, then finishing with a yolk liaison off the boil -- is a foundational one. The pricing in pence is a reminder that gelatine was once a by-product of butchery available cheaply to most households, not a boxed ingredient.