No. 374

Meat and Calf's Foot Jelly

Gelee de Viandes et de Pieds de Veau

Bone eight calves' feet, blanch, cool, and put them into a saucepan with six pounds of round bottom or shoulder of veal, six pounds of legs of beef, two veal knuckles and sixteen quarts of water. Boil, skim and add salt, whole pepper, a bunch of parsley, garnished with thyme, garlic, bay leaf and celery, three onions, one with four cloves in it, some medium carrots and eight leeks. Boil unceasingly until the meats are well done, (from six to eight hours), then strain through a sieve and skim off the fat. Set a little of it on some ice to see whether it is sufficiently gelatinous, and if too consistent add a little veal broth, then proceed to clarify the jelly as follows: Chop up very fine two pounds of lean veal, mixing with it half a pint of egg-white, diluted with half a bottle of white wine or a little water, and mix the jelly stock gradually with this meat, put it back on the fire, stir continually with a whip and when ready to boil, remove and add half a bottleful of Madeira wine, pour the jelly into a flannel jelly bag, restraining it until it be perfectly clear.

For calves' foot jelly and Madeira wine (gelee de pieds de veau au madere) see No. 104.

← No. 373 Chicken and Calf's Foot Jelly Broths & Soups for Invalids No. 375 Mutton Broth →

For the Modern Kitchen

A clarified meat aspic from Ranhofer's invalid-cookery chapter, built on the scale of a hotel kitchen. The whole thing hinges on the clarification: once the egg-white raft sets, it must not be stirred or boiled, or the jelly clouds permanently.

ScaleSixteen quarts of water with roughly 25 lb of meat and bone needs a very large stockpot. Quartering it — two calves' feet, 1.5 lb each of veal and beef shin, 4 quarts water — fits a domestic pot; the finished yield depends on how far the stock reduces over the six to eight hours.
Calves' feetSold split by halal and Latin butchers, and by anyone who breaks down whole calves; "bone" means splitting them and removing the long bones, which a butcher will do. Blanching means covering with cold water, bringing to a boil, draining and rinsing off the scum. Substituting powdered gelatine defeats the purpose — the feet supply the body and mouthfeel this recipe exists for.
"Round bottom" and knucklesBottom round of veal, or shoulder; veal knuckles are the joint end of the shank, sold as osso buco bones or soup bones. Beef "legs" means shin or foreshank.
The set testRanhofer's ice test is a good check. Chill a spoonful until cold; it should be firmly wobbly, not rubbery. Too firm, thin with unsalted broth or water, as the recipe directs; too loose, reduce the stock further before clarifying.
ClarifyingHalf a pint of egg white is about 8 large whites. Mix the chopped veal, whites and wine into the stock while it is cold or barely warm, then raise the heat, stirring with a whip as Ranhofer directs, until it is ready to boil; he takes it off the fire at that point rather than holding it at a simmer. Never let it roll.
StrainingA flannel jelly bag can be replaced by three layers of dampened cheesecloth in a sieve. "Restraining it until it be perfectly clear" most likely means re-straining, passing the jelly through the bag again until it runs clear; in any case do not press or squeeze, which pushes fines through and clouds the result.
MadeiraHalf a bottle is about 12 oz, added off the heat so the aroma survives. Use a dry or medium Madeira (Sercial or Verdelho); modern cooking Madeira is salted and will throw the seasoning off.
StorageThis is an unsealed meat stock. Chill promptly in a shallow pan, keep refrigerated no more than four days, or freeze in portions — the set is unharmed by freezing.

A Little History

Meat jelly of this kind sat at the point where nineteenth-century cooking and nineteenth-century medicine overlapped: gelatinous, wine-laced broths were prescribed for the convalescent as concentrated nourishment in a form a weak stomach could take, which is why Ranhofer files it among invalid soups rather than among the entrees. The technique itself is straight classical French — a long-boiled stock stiff with collagen from calves' feet, then clarified with lean meat and egg white and finished with Madeira. Ranhofer, the restaurant's chef de cuisine from 1862, with a short absence in the mid-1870s, wrote The Epicurean (1894) as a working record of that kitchen. Powdered gelatine was already commercially available by then, but the calf's-foot version held its reputation for flavor and texture well into the twentieth century.