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Calves'-Feet Broth
Boil 2 feet in 3 quarts of water to half; strain, and set it by. When to be used take off the fat, put a large teacupful of the jelly into a saucepan with half a glassful of sweet-wine, a little sugar and nutmeg, and beat it up till it is ready to boil; then take a little of it, and beat by degrees to the yolk of an egg, and adding a bit of butter the size of a nutmeg, stir it all together, but do not let it boil. Grate a bit of fresh lemon into it.
A gelatin extraction dressed up as a hot posset. Everything depends on the last step: once the egg yolk goes in, the pan must never boil.
- The hingeAfter the yolk is beaten in, hold the pan below a simmer and stir constantly. A gelatin-rich liquid at a boil will curdle the yolk into threads and the broth cannot be brought back.
- Boil to halfThree quarts of water reduced by half leaves about 1.5 quarts of stock. Expect 4 to 5 hours at a bare simmer; a hard boil clouds it and emulsifies the fat back in.
- Calves' feetNot a supermarket item. Order them from a halal, Latin American, Caribbean or Eastern European butcher, or ask for them split, which speeds extraction. Two feet is roughly 3 to 4 lb.
- Setting it byChilling overnight does two jobs: it firms the jelly so you can judge the set, and it lifts the fat into a solid cap you can lever off whole. The finished jelly keeps 3 to 4 days refrigerated and freezes well in portions.
- Old measuresA large teacupful is about 6 fl oz. Taking the period wineglass at about 2 fl oz, half a glassful of wine is roughly 1 fl oz. Butter "the size of a nutmeg" is about 2 teaspoons.
- Sweet wineSweet sherry, Madeira, Marsala or a Muscat all suit. The recipe specifies only "sweet-wine" and does not say which.
- Egg safetyThe liquid should be very hot when the yolk is tempered in, and the finished broth wants to reach about 160-165F while being stirred. If you are cooking for someone genuinely unwell or immunocompromised, use a pasteurized yolk.
- LemonGrate the zest only. Juice at this stage can make the yolk grain.
- YieldOne serving of about 6 fl oz, from a batch of roughly 1.5 quarts of jelly that will give about eight such servings.