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Fricassee of Calf's Feet
Soak four calf's feet for three hours in cold water; allow them to simmer in equal proportions of milk and water until they are sufficiently tender to remove the soft part from the bones, dip them in the yolk of an egg, spread fine breadcrumbs over them, season with pepper and salt, and fry to a light brown in butter. Serve with white sauce.
A two-stage dish: a long gentle poach to soften the collagen, then a quick breaded fry. Nothing here is difficult, but the timing given is vague and the sourcing is the real obstacle.
- SourcingCalf's feet are a special order from a butcher who breaks down whole veal, or a halal or Latin American market; pork trotters behave much the same way and are far easier to buy. Ask for them split lengthwise, which shortens the cooking and makes the boning simple.
- How long is "sufficiently tender"Expect 2.5 to 3.5 hours at a bare simmer for split calf's feet. The test is that the meat and rind slip off the bone with finger pressure; if they resist, keep going, because underdone feet are unpleasantly rubbery and no amount of frying will fix them.
- The milk-and-water bathMilk is used here to keep pale meats white and to mute any gaminess, much the same purpose a French blanc serves, though a blanc proper is a water bath with flour and lemon juice rather than milk. Milk scorches easily, so keep the heat low, skim the grey scum that rises in the first ten minutes, and stir the bottom occasionally. Adding a bay leaf, an onion and a few peppercorns costs nothing and improves it.
- Press the meat before breadingOscar skips the step that makes this dish manageable. Pick the boned meat while warm, pack it into a small loaf pan or between two plates, chill several hours until firm, then cut into fingers or squares. The natural gelatin sets it solid and the pieces hold together in the pan.
- Egg and crumbsYolk alone is thick and clings unevenly; loosen it with a spoonful of water or milk. Dust the pieces with flour first, then egg, then crumbs, or the coating will slide off the gelatinous surface.
- FryingClarified butter or a butter-and-oil mix around 350F browns the crumbs without the milk solids burning. Whole butter alone will darken before the pieces are heated through.
- The white sauceMost likely a b ype souté-style sauce, or a velouté-style sauce built on the poaching liquid, strained and reduced. The cooking liquid is loaded with gelatin and makes a far better sauce than plain milk, so do not pour it away.
- YieldFour calf's feet yield less edible meat than their bulk suggests; the recipe gives no number of servings, but a first course for a few people is the realistic scale. Something sharp alongside -- mustard, capers, a lemon wedge -- cuts the richness.
Calf's feet were prized in the nineteenth century for exactly the reason they have fallen out of favor: they are almost pure collagen, and collagen was the household source of gelatin long before it came in envelopes. The same feet that made calf's-foot jelly for invalids could be boned and breaded for the table, which is what Oscar Tschirky is doing here. Calling it a fricassee is a stretch — a fricassee is properly meat cooked in its own white sauce — though the word may well have loosened in American hotel usage by 1896 to cover almost any pale meat served with a white sauce. The dish belongs to the frugal end of a grand kitchen: a chef who could sell the feet at a profit was doing his job. Breading and frying boiled offal à la Sainte-Menehould was standard French practice, most familiar with pig's trotters, and the technique traveled easily to whatever gelatinous cut came to hand.