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Calf's Foot Jelly
Cleanse and wash four calf's feet and put them into a saucepan with one gallon of water, and add two ounces of isinglass and a little lemon-peel. Place the pan over a moderate fire and stew slowly until a strong jelly is formed; carefully skim off the fat and pour in a quart of white wine. When this is incorporated, work in one pound of loaf-sugar, the juice of seven lemons and the whites of fifteen eggs beaten to a froth. Put the pan on the fire again and boil for fifteen minutes longer; remove to the side and let the jelly remain for a few minutes in order to settle; then strain it through a jelly-bag into moulds. When entirely cold, turn it out, and serve.
A gallon-scale Victorian jelly built the old way, from collagen boiled out of bone and clarified with egg white. Nothing here is unsafe, but it is a full day's project and the quantities are for a hotel, not a household.
- The hinge: clarifyingThe fifteen frothed egg whites are not an ingredient, they are a filter. Once the pan returns to the boil the whites coagulate into a raft that traps every cloudy particle, so stir the whites in before heating and then leave the pan absolutely alone. Ladle the liquid out from under the raft and let it drip through the jelly-bag unaided — squeezing the bag forces sediment through and the jelly turns muddy.
- "Stew slowly" means hoursA moderate fire here means a bare simmer, and four feet in a gallon of water need several hours to give up their gelatin and reduce to a strong stock. Test by chilling a teaspoonful on a cold saucer: it should set firm, not merely thicken.
- IsinglassDried sturgeon swim-bladder, sold in leaves or shreds as a setting agent and still used to fine beer and wine. It is a specialist purchase now and its strength varies enormously by grade, so no honest conversion to modern powdered gelatin can be given. If the reduced foot stock passes the saucer test on its own, the isinglass is insurance you can do without.
- Calf's feetOrder ahead from a halal or Latin American butcher, or one who breaks whole carcasses; they are rarely on display. Scrub, split, and blanch them for five minutes in fresh water before starting, then discard that water.
- Loaf-sugarRefined sugar sold as a hard cone and broken up with nippers. Ordinary granulated sugar is the same thing; one pound is about 2 1/4 cups.
- The wine and lemonsA quart of dry white wine plus the juice of seven lemons is a great deal of acid and alcohol for the amount of gelatin present. Boiling drives off most of the alcohol; the acid does slacken a set, which is part of why the original leans on both feet and isinglass.
- Moulds and unmouldingRinse the moulds with cold water rather than oiling them, and give the jelly at least six hours in the refrigerator — the original's "entirely cold" meant a larder or ice chest overnight. To turn out, dip the mould in hot water for five seconds and invert onto a wetted plate so the jelly can be slid into position.
- YieldNo yield is stated. A gallon reduced and clarified gives roughly two to three quarts of finished jelly, enough for sixteen or more servings; halving or quartering the whole recipe works without adjustment.
Calf's foot jelly sat in an odd double position in the nineteenth century: it was both a glittering banquet dessert, turned out of a fluted copper mould and sometimes layered with fruit, and a standard food carried to the sickroom. Novels of the period use a covered basin of it as shorthand for a neighbourly visit to an invalid, on the reasoning that a clear, wine-laced jelly was nourishing and easy to swallow. Making it meant extracting gelatin yourself from feet and knuckles, a long, smelly business, and the spread of commercial sheet and powdered gelatin is generally credited with the dish's decline. Oscar Tschirky, maitre d'hotel of the Waldorf, gives it here in a hotel-scale form — a huge batch, clarified with egg white and stiffened with isinglass.