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COW-HEEL (for invalids)
Take a fresh cow-heel, cleanse and scald it, and remove the fat from between the claws. Do not have one already boiled at the tripe shop, as was said in the last recipe, or it will not be so nourishing. Put it into a saucepan with one pint and a half of cold water, and add a salt-spoonful of salt, a salt-spoonful of fresh mustard, a salt-spoonful of sifted sugar, and a pinch of pepper. Bring it slowly to a boil, skim it well, and simmer it gently for four hours. Just before serving, thicken the gravy with a tea-spoonful of arrowroot mixed smoothly with a little cold water; add a wine-glassful of sherry, and serve immediately. Probable cost of cow-heel, 4d. to 8d. each. Sufficient for two or three persons.
A gelatine-rich broth from the Victorian sickroom repertoire, and one of the simpler ones to reproduce — the only real obstacles are sourcing and the archaic spoon measures.
- Cow-heelThe foot of a cow or ox, split and cleaned; halal and Caribbean butchers usually sell it as cow foot, and Chinese and Korean shops as beef foot. Ask for it split, since a whole heel will not fit a domestic saucepan. A pair of split calf's feet, or a large veal knuckle, gives the same gelatine if cow-heel is not to be had.
- Cleanse and scaldScrubbing and a preliminary blanch in boiling water removes surface grime and loosens hair and residual hoof; drain, scrape, and only then start the four-hour simmer in fresh cold water. Skimming as it comes to the boil helps keep the finished broth clear.
- Salt-spoonfulA Victorian salt-spoon holds roughly a quarter teaspoon. So the seasoning here amounts to about 1/4 tsp each of salt, mustard and caster sugar — very lightly seasoned.
- Fresh mustardMustard made up wet from powder, not a jarred condiment. English mustard powder slaked with a little cold water ten minutes before use is the closest thing.
- Sifted sugarCaster sugar. Nineteenth-century sugar came in lumps or loaves and was sifted after crushing, hence the name.
- Wine-glassfulAbout 2 fl oz (60 ml) in period usage. Added at the end and barely heated, so the alcohol does not cook off — worth knowing if the intended eater is unwell, a child, or avoiding alcohol. Leaving it out costs the dish nothing but a little sweetness.
- Liquid and heatA pint and a half over four hours will reduce considerably; keep it at a bare shiver rather than a boil, lid ajar, and top up with hot water if the foot is no longer covered. A hard boil emulsifies the fat and clouds the broth.
- ArrowrootA teaspoon slaked in cold water, stirred in off the heat or at the barest simmer. Arrowroot thickens almost instantly and thins again if boiled, so add it at the last moment. Cornflour will substitute but gives a cloudier, more pasty result.
- Yield and servingTwo to three, as the original says, meaning two to three invalid portions — a cup of broth with the softened meat picked from the bones. Chilled, the liquid would set to a firm jelly, though this recipe directs serving it at once.
Invalid cookery had its own chapter in most Victorian household manuals, on the assumption that the sick were fed at home and that gelatine was strengthening. Cow-heel, calf's-foot jelly, beef tea and arrowroot gruel all belong to the same family of thinking: long extraction of collagen from bone and connective tissue into a broth that sets when cold, believed to restore a patient who could not manage solid food. The insistence here on not buying a heel already boiled at the tripe shop follows the same logic — a pre-boiled foot has already surrendered much of its gelatine to somebody else's pot. Tripe shops were common in industrial English towns, selling cooked offal cheaply, and at fourpence to eightpence a heel this was a very cheap nourishing dish. The nutritional claim was overstated, since gelatine is an incomplete protein, but the technique is sound and survives in cow foot soup and the various Asian braises that still prize the foot for exactly the same set texture.