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Calf's Foot Jelly, Apple
Put a pint of apple juice into a saucepan with a pint of clear calf's foot stock (see CALF'S FOOT STOCK), the rind and juice of a lemon, a tablespoonful of sugar, a small glass of brandy, and the whites and pounded shells of three eggs. Mix these well together, and let them boil gently for fifteen minutes. Take the jelly from the fire, let it stand to settle, and strain it through a jelly-bag until quite clear; then pour it into a mould. If the stock is not very stiff, add a little isinglass. Sufficient for two and a half pints of jelly. Probable cost, 1s. per pint.
A clarified jelly of the Victorian sickroom and supper table, built on gelatine extracted from calf's feet rather than a packet. Most of the work is in the clarification, and most of the failures come from disturbing it.
- The hinge: do not stir the raftOnce the egg white and shells coagulate into a crust on the surface, stop stirring and keep the liquid at the barest tremble for the full fifteen minutes. A rolling boil breaks the raft apart and drives the fine particles back into the jelly, and no amount of straining afterwards will bring it fully clear.
- Calf's foot stockA long-simmered stock of split calf's feet, strained and chilled until it sets firm and the fat is lifted off. Butchers rarely stock feet now; a strong stock from pig's trotters behaves the same way. Powdered gelatine will set the liquid but gives a thinner, less resilient body, and the flavour is different.
- IsinglassDried sturgeon swim-bladder, used as a clarifying and setting agent. It is still sold for brewing but is not a kitchen staple; leaf gelatine does the same setting job here.
- Apple juiceThis means juice pressed or strained from apples, cloudy and tart, not the filtered sweetened bottled kind. Modern clear apple juice is much sweeter, so taste before adding the full tablespoon of sugar.
- A small glass of brandyVictorian wine glasses ran roughly 2 to 3 fl oz. Take it as about a quarter cup. The alcohol will not fully cook off in fifteen minutes of gentle simmering.
- StrainingA jelly-bag is a conical flannel or muslin bag hung over a bowl. Scald it first, pour the first run back through the bag a second time, and let it drip untouched. Squeezing the bag forces cloud through.
- Yield and settingTwo and a half pints from two pints of liquid is optimistic once the raft and strainings are lost; expect nearer two pints, enough for eight to ten small moulds or one large one. Chill at least six hours, and dip the mould briefly in warm water to turn it out.
- Cost noteOne shilling a pint was the compiler's guide price at the time of writing and is only useful as a marker of how modest the dish was thought to be.
Calf's foot jelly was the standard invalid food of the nineteenth-century English household, prescribed for convalescents on the reasoning that a concentrated, easily swallowed animal jelly would rebuild strength; it appears in novels and nursing manuals as often as in cookery books. The gelatine came from long boiling of the feet, a use for an otherwise near-worthless cut. Fruit versions like this one, with apple juice, lemon and a glass of brandy, moved the dish from sickroom to dessert table, where it was moulded and turned out as a clear, quivering shape. Clarification with egg white and shell is a technique rather than a single dish, the same method used for consomme. Commercially packaged gelatine, already available when this book was compiled, gradually made the whole labour of boiling feet unnecessary, and the dish faded with it.