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Sheep's Head Hash

A hash made from boiled sheep's head, liver, heart, and onion, served with toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Sheep's Head Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Clean the sheep's head like a calf's head.

  2. Place it in a pot with the liver and heart, and add the onion.

  3. Simmer gently for 1.5 hours.

  4. Remove the meat and let it cool.

  5. Once cold, chop the meat, heart, and liver finely.

Make the hash and serve

  1. In a stewpan, combine the chopped meat with butter, water or cooking liquid, salt, and pepper.

  2. Heat through and serve with squares of toast around the dish.

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. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Liver + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,420 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Liver + buttertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,065 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Liver + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,375 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

Sheep's head
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender during slow simmering.
Liver
Adds a rich, deep flavour to the meat mixture.
Heart
Adds dense, meaty texture and savoury depth to the hash.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the chopped meat taste moist and savoury.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for 1.5 hours. A gentle simmer keeps the meat tender and moist. A hard boil toughens muscle proteins and can make the meat dry and stringy.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, butter, 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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