Veal Daube
After the head of a calf is skinned and the feet prepared by taking off the hoofs, scraping, etc., throw them into cold water for twenty-four hours. Put them in a boiler of cold water, and simmer until the flesh leaves the bones and there is but little water left.
Throw in salt, pepper, minced onion, parsley, and thyme; take the meat and bones out. Beat up two eggs until light, add two tablespoonfuls cold water, then the liquor from the boiler. Stir all together, boil up and strain on the meat from the head, which must first be cut up or picked fine and chopped with six hard-boiled eggs, and seasoned to the taste with the juice of one lemon and wineglass of jelly. This is set aside in a mould or bowl and eaten cold with garnish of scraped horse-radish and parsley. The calves' feet make another good dish by drying first, then dipping in batter made of an egg, one spoonful of flour, one small teacupful milk, with a little salt, and frying.--Mrs. S. T.
This is a jellied brawn — head cheese — set in its own gelatin, plus a second recipe for battered calf's foot fritters from the leftovers. Nothing here is difficult, but almost every ingredient now has to be ordered rather than bought.
- Sourcing the head and feetA skinned calf's head and unhoofed calves' feet come from a halal or Latin American butcher, or by special order; expect to give a week's notice. If a whole head is impractical, ask for split head halves and two feet, which give the same meat-to-gelatin ratio. Nothing else supplies both the collagen and the mixed textures the dish depends on.
- The soak is not optionalTwenty-four hours in cold water draws out blood and cleans the bone ends, and it is the difference between a clear, sweet jelly and a cloudy, gamey one. Change the water two or three times and keep it refrigerated, not on the counter as the original assumes.
- "Simmer until the flesh leaves the bones"That is three to four hours at a bare tremble, never a rolling boil, which clouds the stock. "Little water left" means the liquid has reduced to a strongly gelatinous stock — chill a spoonful on a saucer; if it sets firm, it will set in the mould.
- The eggs are a clarification, not a custardBeaten eggs plus cold water stirred into the hot liquor and boiled up acts as a clarification: the coagulating protein traps sediment and is strained out. Add the hot liquor to the eggs gradually, as the recipe directs, so they do not scramble on contact; then bring it up gently and do not stir once the raft forms.
- Wineglass of jellyAbout 2 fluid ounces, roughly 4 tablespoons. A tart jelly such as currant or crabapple supplies acidity and a little sweetness against the richness; grape jelly is too sweet, redcurrant is the closest modern match.
- Chill properlyLoad the mould, press the surface level, and refrigerate at least 6 hours or overnight. This is a cooked meat set in stock and eaten cold, so keep it under 40F throughout and eat within three or four days; the period practice of setting it in a cool larder is the one instruction to ignore.
- Serving and yieldOne head and two feet make a generous 2-quart mould — enough for twelve or more as a cold cut. Turn out, slice thick with a hot knife, and serve with the scraped horseradish and parsley as directed; a sharp mustard and buttered bread turn it into lunch.
- The fritter batterOne egg, a tablespoon of flour and a small teacupful of milk — about 1/2 cup — with salt gives a thin coating batter. "Drying first" means patting the boned, cooled feet dry so the batter clings; fry in 2 inches of fat at 365F until crisp, a few minutes a side.
Daube in French cookery is a slow-braised, wine-scented stew, and a French cook would not recognize this dish under that name; in this recipe "daube" is used for a cold jellied meat turned out of a mould, closer to what English cooks called brawn or collared head. Housekeeping in Old Virginia (variously dated 1877–1879 in surviving editions), compiled by Marion Cabell Tyree from contributions by named and initialed Virginia housewives, is full of such borrowed French labels applied to thrifty Anglo-American practice. The recipe's real logic is economy: a calf's head and feet were among the cheapest things at a butcher's stall, and their collagen made gelatin at no cost in an era before packaged sheets and powders were common in home kitchens. That a second dish is wrung from the same feet, battered and fried, is characteristic of the book's whole outlook — and of the fact that jellied and moulded meats, now largely gone from American tables, were then a standard centerpiece of the cold supper and the sideboard.