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Calf's Head Soup Another Way

A soup made from a boiled calf's head, veal stock, onions, cloves, mace, butter, flour, sugar, eggs, fried balls, and wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Hodgson, Mary, fl. 1855 · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,400 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Calf's Head Soup Another Way

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head

  1. Take a large calf's head, wash it very clean, and let it boil for an hour and a half.

  2. Remove it, taking out all the meat from the bones.

  3. Skim the soup well.

Make the soup

  1. Add two quarts of veal stock, and put in the meat after cutting it into small square pieces.

  2. Add three large onions, half an ounce of cloves, and nutmeg and mace.

  3. Chop very finely all kinds of sweet herbs.

  4. Strain off the liquor.

  5. Put a quarter of a pound of butter in a pan on the fire, and when it is hot, stir in some flour and a little sugar.

  6. Put this in the soup, stirring it well.

  7. Season it to your taste.

  8. Add eggs, fried balls, and a pint of wine.

  9. Serve it up hot.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

178Calories
1 gProtein
12 gFat
12 gCarbs

Counts 4 of 6 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 4 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Wine2 tbsp cooking wine (30ml)25
Clove1 tsp ground (2g)7
Vealnot in our table0
Macenot 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 Hodgson, Mary, fl. 1855. 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. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Clove + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Clove + winetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: cis-isoeugenol (clove, spicy).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal stock
Forms the liquid base of the soup, giving it body and savoury depth.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and with flour helps thicken the soup.
Flour (in the method)
Thickens the soup when cooked in butter and stirred in.
Eggs (in the method)
Add richness and help bind and thicken the soup.
Onions
Add savoury, sweet aromatic flavour to the stock.

The step that matters

Stirring the butter and flour into the soup. If the butter and flour roux is added without being stirred in well, lumps can form and the soup will thicken unevenly. Stirring it fully into the hot soup keeps the texture smooth.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, clove, butter, wine, mace):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, clove, butter, wine, mace. 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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