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Jelly, Meat Used in Stock For
A good breakfast or luncheon dish may be made of the meat from the feet which have been stewed for stock. Take away the bones, and cut the meat into neat pieces, season them with salt and cayenne, and a little pounded mace. Press them into a mould, pour over them a little of the jelly, and when cold turn out in a shape. Garnish according to taste. Time, a quarter of an hour to prepare. Probable cost, 1d. or 2d. Sufficient for two or three persons, if made from the remains of two feet.
JELLY MOULD. (See Illustration accompanying the notice of APPLE CALF'S FOOT JELLY.)
A thrift dish: the picked meat from calf's or pig's feet that have already given up their gelatine to a stockpot, set in a little of that same stock. The technique is sound, but the original assumes a cook who has just lifted the feet out of the pot.
- The hinge: work while everything is hotPick the meat from the feet as soon as they are cool enough to handle, and pour over stock that is still liquid and hot. Cold stock will not bind, and meat left standing at room temperature while you fuss with the mould is the one real risk in the dish.
- What "the feet" meansThe entry says only "the feet"; calf's feet are implied by the cross-reference to apple calf's foot jelly. Pig's trotters are far easier to buy and set at least as firmly; two trotters yield roughly the meat the recipe expects. Ask a butcher to split them.
- "A little of the jelly"Use just enough of the reduced, strained stock to fill the gaps between the pieces of meat, not to swim them — about 1/2 cup for a 2-cup mould. If your stock has been well reduced it will set unaided; test a spoonful on a cold plate first.
- Pounded maceMace is the lacy covering of the nutmeg seed, sold ground; about 1/4 teaspoon for this quantity. It is warmer and less sweet than nutmeg and is the traditional seasoning for potted and jellied meats.
- CayenneVictorian recipes use cayenne sparingly, as a sharpener as much as for heat. A pinch, no more, or it will dominate a very delicately flavoured jelly.
- Chilling and keeping"Time, a quarter of an hour to prepare" counts only the assembly. Allow at least four hours in the refrigerator to set, and eat within two days — a lightly seasoned meat jelly with no vinegar or curing salt is a perishable thing.
- Turning outDip the mould to the rim in hot water for five seconds, or wrap it in a cloth wrung out in hot water, then invert onto a wetted plate. Rinsing the mould in cold water before filling makes this easier.
- YieldTwo to three as a light dish, as stated. Sliced thin with mustard, pickles or a sharp salad it stretches further as part of a cold table.
This entry sits in Cassell's run of calf's-foot jelly recipes and exists because nothing was thrown away: the feet were bought for their gelatine, which sweetened into invalid jellies and stiffened savoury moulds, and the meat left clinging to the bones afterwards was a by-product to be used up. The dish belongs to the broad family of brawn and head cheese — meat set in its own natural gelatine, a preservation method that long predates powdered gelatine and packet aspic. The costing of "1d. or 2d." is the point of the entry as much as the flavour is: this is a breakfast dish made from something already paid for. Commercial sheet and powdered gelatine, on sale well before the end of the nineteenth century, made the long simmering of feet less necessary, though the retreat of dishes like this one from domestic cooking cannot be put down to packet gelatine alone.