Cow Heels
389. Cow heels, like tripe, are best prepared by the tripe-seller, or they require careful soaking and cleansing. They then merely require warming up in boiling water, or milk and water, after which they should be served with cuttle sauce, or with parsley and butter, or simple melted butter. They are sometimes eaten cold with vinegar and salad.
An entry that assumes a tripe-seller on the high street, which no longer exists in most places. The practical work is sourcing and, if the heels come raw, the long simmer the book takes for granted.
- What a cow heel isThe foot of a cow or ox, split, with the hoof removed. Halal and Caribbean butchers usually stock them, often labelled cow foot; a British butcher will normally order them in. Pig trotters behave similarly but are fattier.
- "Prepared by the tripe-seller"The tripe shop sold heels already scalded, scraped and boiled soft, so the customer only reheated them. What you buy today will almost always be raw. Scrub well, blanch from cold water for ten minutes, discard that water, then simmer in fresh water for three to four hours until the meat and gristle yield to a fork.
- "Melted butter" is a sauceIn Victorian usage melted butter means a white sauce thickened with a little flour, not simply butter run in a pan. Parsley and butter is the same sauce with chopped parsley stirred through it off the heat.
- The milk-and-water optionWarming through in half milk, half water gives a mild, slightly enriched result. Keep it at a bare shiver rather than a rolling boil, or the milk will catch.
- Eaten coldCooking liquor from cow heel sets to a firm jelly on chilling, which is why the cold service with vinegar and salad works. Cool the heels in enough of their liquor to coat them, then chill; slice while cold and dress at the table.
- SeasoningThe original gives none. Salt the cooking water, and treat the meat as needing pepper, mustard or a sharp vinegar to cut the gelatinous texture, which is the point of the vinegar in the cold version.
- YieldOne heel will feed about two as a main course with potatoes, or four as part of a cold table; the original specifies nothing. Any surplus liquor, strained and chilled, is an excellent stock base for soups and pies.