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Calf's Head with Brain Sauce

Boiled calf head served with a sauce of brain, liver, and wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Norton, Caroline Trask · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Calf's Head with Brain Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head

  1. Soak the head in cold water for two hours.

  2. Take out the brains.

  3. Scrape the head very clean, then pin it in a floured cloth.

  4. Put the head on to boil in salted, boiling water enough to cover.

  5. After boiling two hours, add the brains (which have first been pinned in a floured cloth), liver and lights, and boil two hours longer.

  6. Remove the cloth from the head and the large bones will slip out.

  7. Lay the head on the platter with the skin side up.

Make the brain sauce

  1. Take one quart of liquor that the head has been boiled in, one-third of the liver chopped fine, and the brains chopped fine.

  2. Melt one-half cup of butter, stir into it five tablespoonfuls of flour.

  3. When smooth, add the hot liquor a little at a time.

  4. Stir in the chopped brains and liver, then add two tablespoonfuls of vinegar, a half cup of white and red wine.

  5. Salt and pepper to taste. Add a little grated nutmeg if desired.

  6. Cook ten minutes.

Serve

  1. Skin the tongue and slice the remainder of the liver, and surround the head with them.

  2. Pour over a part of the gravy.

  3. Garnish with slices of lemon and radishes cut to represent roses.

  4. Send the remainder of the gravy to the table in a dish.

Prepare the sweetbreads

  1. Put the sweetbreads in cold water.

  2. Remove the pipes and membranes.

  3. Cook in boiling salted water with one tablespoonful of lemon juice or one-half tablespoonful of vinegar for twenty minutes, then plunge in cold water for ten minutes to harden.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

578Calories
14 gProtein
13 gFat
100 gCarbs

Counts 6 of 7 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 6 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Vinegar1 tbsp (15ml) distilled3
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Liquornot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Norton, Caroline Trask. 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. See the original page.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  4. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the butter and boiled liquor into a smooth gravy.
Butter
Enriches the gravy and carries the flour to form a roux.
Brains (in the method)
Gives the sauce its rich, creamy body and savoury flavour.
Liver (in the method)
Adds depth and body to the sauce and is served as a side.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich gravy.

The step that matters

Adding the hot liquor slowly to the flour and butter. Adding hot liquid gradually to a fat and flour roux lets the starch disperse evenly, so the gravy becomes smooth instead of lumpy.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, vinegar, flour, pepper):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Mangofits about as well
  3. Limefits about as well
  4. Cherryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, vinegar, flour, pepper. 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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