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Calf's Head Soup

A soup made from calf head meat, ham, herbs, onions, mushrooms, stock, wine, and spices, served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Calf's Head Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the calf's head

  1. Scald the calf's head with the skin on.

  2. Remove the brain.

  3. Tie the head in a cloth.

  4. Boil for 1 hour.

  5. Remove the meat from the bones.

  6. Cut the meat into small pieces.

  7. Place the meat in cold water.

  8. Put the meat into a stewpan.

  9. Cover the meat with stock.

  10. Boil gently for 1 hour or until tender.

Make the soup base

  1. Melt butter in another stewpan.

  2. Add small pieces of ham.

  3. Add herbs.

  4. Add parsley.

  5. Add onions.

  6. Add shallots.

  7. Add mushrooms.

  8. Add nearly 1 pint of stock.

  9. Simmer slowly for 2 hours.

  10. Dredge in enough flour to absorb the butter.

  11. Fill with remaining stock.

  12. Add wine.

  13. Stew gently for 10 minutes.

  14. Rub the mixture through a tammy.

  15. Add the mixture to the calf's head meat.

Season and serve

  1. Season with cayenne, salt, orange juice, lemon juice, mace, and sugar.

  2. Add the force-meat balls.

  3. Simmer for 5 minutes.

  4. Serve very 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. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  2. Shallot + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

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

  3. Shallot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  5. Mushroom + winetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,632 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-propylphenol (allspice, anise).

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 gelatinous meat and body that give the soup its substance.
Butter
Enriches the base and carries the aromatics, giving a rich mouthfeel.
Flour
Absorbs the butter and thickens the liquid into a smoother body.
Ham
Adds savoury, salty depth to the stock base.
Orange juice and lemon juice
Add acidity that brightens the rich, heavy broth.
Mushrooms
Add earthy aroma and savoury umami flavour to the base.

The step that matters

Simmer the meat gently until tender. Vigorous boiling toughens proteins and breaks the meat apart, while gentle simmering lets collagen slowly convert to gelatin, yielding tender meat and a silky broth.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, ham, parsley, shallot, mushroom, flour, wine):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Welsh onionfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, ham, parsley, shallot, mushroom, flour, wine. 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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