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Calf's Head Soup

A hearty soup made from a calf's head, broth, and meat, finished with fried meatballs and wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Calf's Head Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head

  1. Boil the calf's head in 2 gallons of water until tender.

  2. Remove the head from the pot, bone it, and reserve the brains and tongue.

  3. Cut the remaining meat into small pieces and season with red and black pepper, coarse sea salt, onion, parsley, thyme, sweet marjoram, mace, cloves, allspice, and nutmeg.

  4. Strain the broth and return the meat to it, allowing them to boil together.

Make the balls and finish

  1. Chop the tongue and brains finely, season, and form into balls using the raw egg.

  2. Fry the balls in oil until golden.

  3. When the soup is nearly done, add the fried balls and the tumbler of wine.

  4. Place chopped hard-boiled egg in the soup tureen before serving.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Thyme + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,077 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Calf's head
Provides the meat and gelatin that give the soup its body and rich texture.
Raw egg
Binds the chopped tongue and brains so they hold their shape when formed into balls.
Wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the finished soup.
Brains
Add richness and a soft, creamy texture to the fried balls.

The step that matters

Fry the balls in oil until golden. Frying sets the egg-bound surface and browns it, giving the balls a firm exterior that holds together in the hot broth instead of breaking apart.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, onion, parsley, thyme, marjoram, clove, allspice):

  1. Winter savoryfits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Rosemaryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, onion, parsley, thyme, marjoram, clove, allspice. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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