honestly I wish I had the courage to eat something like this but I don’t!!!

Just to add a little something : Montpellier is a french city and is spelled with two L ^^
It doesn’t make me hungry but I must say your picture is great, you made a beautiful dish :)

I’ve spent the past two days actually making this. A quick back-story: after a disastrous episode in which I was charged with bringing that lime/walnut/cottage cheese Jell-O abomination to my family’s Thanksgiving dinner, it became a tradition for me to bring REALLY BAD aspics every year. Only I try to make them only SOUND bad. Coconut curry was surprisingly awesome. I do not recommend lamb with feta. In the end, it doesn’t matter; each and every member of my family is REQUIRED to try the Jell-O. It’s affirmed tradition. (A decision that was not mine.)

I’ve been threatening to bring Jellied Calves’ Brains for nearly two years, since I stumbled across this recipe while preparing to host a GoT party. (By the by, the acorn squash and spiced wine recipes here are AMAZING.) This year, I actually got around to ordering the brains from my local butcher in time.

My only regret is that there wasn’t really time to ask you guys for help when things went awry (and they did!) so I have some feedback in case anyone else ever feels compelled to do this crazy thing.

On the butter: Gherkins was confusing, and there’s conflicting information about what the term actually means depending on location and recipe. A small cucumber? A savory pickle? A sweet one? I initially bought tiny cucumbers, then later decided (using the egg yolks and my Southern American potato-salad-eating upbringing as a qualifier) that pickles were the way to go. Bread and butter chips were all I had on hand, so I went with that, about 1/8 cup or so, pre-dicing. Based on the color of the butter in the picture, you really have to pack your herbs into the cup to achieve the proper measurements. I used an entire Living Herbs bunch of fresh dill (2 oz package) and the other half of the “market bunch” of parsley not used in the stock. The spinach I initially eyeballed–a good, lightly squeezed handful, surely 1/3 cup. After blanching and squeezing the water out through a paper towel, I had maybe 2 tbsp of herbs, which, after blending in the food processor, wasn’t enough to make the butter nearly as green as what’s in the image above. I blanched another 1/3 cup spinach (it was the only greenery I had left), tightly packed, and it still wasn’t that green, but I am impatient, so I went with it. Were I more patient, I would have doubled all the herbs, the same way I instinctively doubled the garlic. Consider your mold when you make your log and size it accordingly. I also ended up having a LOT more butter than I needed, by an easy half. Also also, anchovies are disgusting. I used them, but good grief, they are disgusting to handle.

On the aspic: I couldn’t decide if “2 split trotters” meant two feet, split, or two of the split pieces of a foot. I went with two feet, split, because that’s what came in the package, and I sure as heck wasn’t going to use them for anything else. Ever. Parsnips are amazing, though, and I will be using them much more often in the future, thanks to this happy discovery. The recipe says to quarter the onion and the turnip, but says nothing of the other veggies. After some research, I determined that the internet consensus agrees more surface area=more flavor, and since the recipe says not to skimp on the stock, this seemed reasonable. I chopped all the vegetables into roughly 1″ pieces, onion and turnip included. (I used a very large Vidalia onion, for the curious.) The initial smell was amazing. By the end of the four hours, I was very, very done with the sharp pungency. After straining (wow, that was an experience!), I let it cool a bit before putting it into the fridge overnight. The next day, when I went to skim off the layer of fat, I found I’d already made gelatin. The whole thing was congealed through. Undaunted, I scraped off the top, lighter, fatty layer and let the pot sit out. It remained gelatinous. I put it on the burner for a moment to get enough heat into it to liquidate the mass without heating it, whisking regularly. When it was liquid once more, but still cool, I added the frothed egg whites and shells. (Why the shells? I cannot figure that out for the life of me.) Note: WHISK! COMPLETELY! I had no idea what I was doing here, so I just whisked for a moment, staring at the foamy white mess on top of my stock and wondering what the heck a raft was, then set it back on the burner. Well. My mistake. Read up on making consommé BEFORE you try this raft business. I had something like a meringue on top once the stock began to simmer, then the steam made its own hole, and it was bigger than two inches. Then the eggs went wild, taking up half my stock pot, while my stock was all down there in the bottom, completely inaccessible. There was no ladling to be had. After some bemusement and some skeptical prodding, I chucked the whole mess through a double-mesh sieve. The pan is going to be a disaster to clean, but what I had at that point was about 1 3/4 cups stock that was relatively clear. Reducing wasn’t an option if I was going to have enough, but since I knew it would already form a gelatin, I didn’t worry about it and set the stock aside.

NOW LISTEN UP! All of the non-Swedish comments up until now have talked about the dubious adventure of brains. The brains are fine. Worry about the pig feet before you worry about the brains. I, who was so doubtful, ended up putting the leftover boiled brains in my freezer, and I’m going to sauté them up with something delicious, or maybe fry them. If you can boil pigs’ feet for four hours, you’re going to have no problem with the brains.

On the brains: I bought “veal brains.” And I forgot to rinse them. I say “forgot.” What I mean is, despite the trotters, I went apoplectic at the thought of touching brains, so I just opened the package and dumped the whole mess into my boiling water. I thought I’d purchased a single brain–it certainly looked like one long brain in the package, vaguely calf-skull-shaped–or so I reasoned–but evidently I purchased five. They’re teeny little things, smaller than my fist. They’re actually kind of cute. But how grey is grey? No idea. I looked it up, and it seems 12-15 minutes at full boil is enough if you intend to sauté veal brains, so I boiled them for eighteen minutes and then let them cool on butcher paper. (They kept trying to stick to the paper towels.) Cooked, they’re no more threatening than chicken legs, but slicing them was interesting. They’re so fatty! A truly sharp knife really is imperative to keep from squishing them. Because I was trying to keep the slices thin and uniform, and using only the tidiest-looking brain pieces, I was really wasteful and still only went through two of my five brains.

On the assembly: Slice thinner than you think you need to. Choose a mold that doesn’t have scalloped edges. Keep your aspic in a relatively warm area of the kitchen so it stays liquidy, then transfer your mold to the freezer to chill between layers.

Tomorrow my family eats brains, for the first time in any of our lives. I’d like to thank the Inn at the Crossroads for helping me to both repulse and, hopefully, pleasantly surprise my loved ones. We’ll see. I’m still having visions of trotters. I’ll let you guys know how it turns out, though. Much appreciation regardless–it can’t be worse than lamb and feta. You guys are awesome.

Cheers!