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Sheep's Head Soup

A soup made by simmering a sheep's head with vegetables and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Sheep's Head Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the sheep's head thoroughly.

  2. Place the head in a large pot and cover with water.

Make the soup

  1. Add chopped onion, carrots, and turnip.

  2. Season with salt, pepper, and herbs.

  3. Simmer for several hours until the meat is tender.

Serve

  1. Strain the soup and serve hot.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Sheep's head
Provides the meat and bones that flavour and body the broth as it simmers.
Onion
Adds sweetness and savoury aroma to the broth as it cooks.
Carrots
Contribute natural sweetness and body to the soup.
Turnip
Adds mild sweetness and earthy flavour to the broth.

The step that matters

Simmer for several hours until the meat is tender. Gentle simmering breaks down connective tissue slowly. Boiling hard can toughen the meat and cloud the broth, so keep the liquid at a low, steady simmer until the meat is tender.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, turnip, pepper, parsley):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, pepper, parsley. 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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