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Cow-heel Cutlets

Cutlets made from boiled cow heels, simmered with onion, cloves, parsley, herbs, then thickened with corn flour and flavored with lemon and sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Marjoram and thyme 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 ↓

Cow-heel Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Take the liquor from the boiled cow heels and stew it for 1 hour with the onion, cloves, parsley, and herbs.

  2. Strain the mixture and color it with a little meat extract.

  3. Thicken slightly with corn flour.

  4. Add the juice of ½ small lemon and ⅓ cup of sherry or marsala.

Serve

  1. 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. Marjoram + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Clove + marjoramtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Clove + thymetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Liquor from boiled cow heels
Provides the rich, gelatin-based body and meaty flavor of the base.
Corn flour
Thickens the strained liquor into a lightly bodied sauce.
Meat extract
Deepens the color and adds concentrated savory meat flavor.
Sherry or marsala
Adds wine acidity and sweetness that brighten and round the savory base.
Juice of ½ small lemon
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and balances the richness.

The step that matters

Thicken slightly with corn flour. Corn flour is starch that swells when heated in liquid. Add it to a hot, simmering liquor and stir well, or it clumps. Stop once lightly thickened, since starch keeps thickening as it cools.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clove, parsley, marjoram, thyme, meat, corn, flour):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, parsley, marjoram, thyme, meat, corn, flour. 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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