Calf's foot

Pied de veau

What it is

Before commercial gelatine this was gelatine: nineteenth-century sickroom cookery ran on calf's-foot jelly, boiled from a split foot and flavoured with lemon and sherry for invalids. In a kitchen the job has not changed — one foot in a daube is what makes the sauce cling to the spoon and the terrine hold its edge.

In the kitchen

Ask for it split lengthwise, blanch it ten minutes and throw that first water away or the daube tastes of the yard. One foot sets roughly two litres of stock to a firm jelly — use half of it for a sauce you want glossy rather than solid.

Goes with

Carrot Onion Bay leaf Thyme Orange Red wine vinegar Clove Black pepper

Same species

Abura-kasu Amourettes (spinal marrow) Spider steak Bastourma Flank steak Beef

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