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Catr’s Head, SouseD

A boiled calf head served with oil, vinegar, pepper, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 887 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Catr’s Head, SouseD

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Scald and bone the calf's head.

  2. Soak it for 7-8 hours, changing the water twice, then dry it.

  3. Season with salt, minced sage, and onions.

Cook and serve

  1. Roll it up tightly and boil in salted water, adding white wine.

  2. Once done, place it in a deep dish with the cooking liquid.

  3. Serve whole or sliced with oil, vinegar, pepper, and lemon.

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. Sage + lemontop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together887 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  4. White wine + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Calf's head
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender and gelatinous when slowly simmered.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the cooking liquid, flavouring the meat as it boils.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity to the finished dish, balancing the richness of the meat.
Sage
Contributes a savoury, aromatic herbal flavour to the seasoning.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sage, white wine, vinegar, pepper, lemon):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Broccolifits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sage, white wine, vinegar, pepper, lemon. 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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