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Calf's Head Hash

A hash made from boiled calf head, gravy, anchovy, spices, and fried brain cakes, garnished with mushrooms, egg yolks, and pickles.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 25 ingredients
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Why it works: Anchovy and ketchup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 479 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Calf's Head Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head

  1. Clean the calf's head thoroughly and boil it for 15 minutes.

  2. Once cooled, cut the meat into thin slices and place in a pan with gravy.

Make the hash

  1. Stew for 45 minutes, then add anchovy, mace, Cayenne, lemon pickle, walnut ketchup, truffles, lemon slices, sweet herbs, and white wine.

  2. Mix butter with flour and add to the pan.

Make the brain cakes

  1. Soak the brains in hot water, then beat them finely with eggs, flour, lemon peel, parsley, thyme, and sage.

  2. Form the mixture into small cakes and fry in hot hog's lard until brown.

Serve

  1. Remove the hash from the pan and place on a dish, straining the gravy over it.

  2. Garnish with mushrooms, hard-boiled egg yolks, brain cakes, lemon, and pickles.

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. Anchovy + ketchuptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together479 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  3. Lemon + walnuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,149 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Lemon + white winetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  5. Pepper + walnuttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,039 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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 main meat, which is sliced and stewed until tender in the gravy.
Eggs
Bind the brain mixture so the cakes hold their shape when fried.
Butter
Mixed with flour to enrich and thicken the gravy, adding richness and body.
Flour
Thickens the gravy and helps bind the brain mixture into cakes.
Truffles or morels
Add a distinctive earthy aroma to the stewed gravy.
White wine
Adds acidity and brightness that balances the rich gravy.

The step that matters

Frying the brain cakes until brown. The cakes must be formed firmly and fried in hot fat so the surface sets and browns before the soft interior breaks apart. Too low a heat leaves them greasy and fragile.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (anchovy, pepper, lemon, walnut, ketchup, truffle, white wine):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against anchovy, pepper, lemon, walnut, ketchup, truffle, white 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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