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Curacoa Jelly
Curacoa jelly is made by substituting Seville orange-rind for the lemon-rind generally used in making calf's foot jelly, and using curacoa instead of sherry or brandy.
This is a variation note rather than a standalone recipe: it assumes you already have Cassell's calf's foot jelly in front of you and changes two things in it. Everything hinges on the base, so read that first.
- The base is the whole recipeVictorian calf's foot jelly typically means simmering split calf's feet in water until well reduced, straining, chilling overnight, and lifting the set stock off the fat and sediment. That gelatine stock is what carries the flavouring here. Quantities and yield should be taken from the base recipe itself.
- Gelatine insteadIf you are not boiling feet, unflavoured powdered gelatine is the modern equivalent: about 2½ to 3 teaspoons per pint of liquid for a jelly firm enough to turn out of a mould, less if you are serving it in glasses. Calf's foot stock also brings body and a faint savouriness that gelatine does not, so the result is cleaner but thinner in character.
- Seville orange rindSeville oranges are the bitter marmalade orange, in season only from late December into February in most markets. Take the rind in wide strips with a peeler and leave the white pith behind, or the jelly turns harsh. Zest from an ordinary orange plus a strip or two of lemon is the nearest year-round stand-in.
- How much curaçaoThe book gives no quantity because the base recipe carries it. Period calf's foot jelly recipes often use something in the region of half a pint of sherry to two quarts of stock, but curaçao is sweeter and stronger; a gill (an imperial quarter-pint, about 5 fl oz) is nearer the mark, and taste before you set it.
- Adjust the sugar downCuraçao is a sweet liqueur where sherry is not. If the base recipe calls for a pound of sugar to two quarts, cut it back by two or three ounces and correct at the end, while the jelly is still liquid and warm.
- Clearing with egg whiteThe clarification step, whisking in egg whites and crushed shells, bringing it up to a boil untouched, then letting it stand and straining through a jelly bag, is what makes the difference between a cloudy and a clear jelly. Do not stir once the raft forms, and do not squeeze the bag; pour it through twice if the first run is not bright.
- Add the spirit lateStir the curaçao in after clarifying and off the heat. Boiling drives off both the alcohol and the volatile orange oils that are the point of using it.
- Setting and turning outWet the mould with cold water rather than oiling it, and give the jelly at least six hours in the refrigerator, overnight for a large mould. To unmould, dip briefly in warm water to the rim and invert onto a wetted plate so the jelly can be slid into position.
Curaçao takes its name from the Caribbean island, where, by the account usually given, the bitter Laraha orange descended from Spanish plantings proved inedible but yielded intensely aromatic dried peel; Dutch producers built a liqueur on it, and by the nineteenth century "curaçao" was a generic English term for any orange liqueur of that type. Cassell's substitution of Seville rind for lemon is a deliberate doubling-down: the same bitter-orange note in the peel and in the spirit. The parent dish, calf's foot jelly, was one of the great labours of the Victorian kitchen and also one of its standard invalid foods, prescribed for the convalescent as nourishing and easily swallowed; dressing it up with liqueur and orange moved it from the sickroom to the supper table. The entry's telegraphic style is typical of a dictionary of cookery, where variations are listed as short amendments to a master recipe printed elsewhere in the volume.