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Calf's Head Soup Another Way

A hearty soup made from calf's head, onions, and seasonings, finished with egg balls, mushroom ketchup, soy sauce, wine, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Calf's Head Soup Another Way

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head

  1. In a large pot, boil the cleaned calf's head in 1 gallon of water until half cooked.

  2. Remove the meat, cut it into small pieces, and discard the bones.

  3. Add the meat back to the pot along with 1 quart of beef stock.

  4. Season with black pepper, cayenne pepper, and coarse sea salt.

Make the soup

  1. In a skillet, fry the sliced onions in butter until golden, then stir in a little flour to thicken.

  2. Add the onion mixture to the soup.

  3. About 10 minutes before serving, stir in chopped chives, parsley, and the prepared egg balls.

  4. Add 2 tablespoons of mushroom ketchup, 1 tablespoon of soy sauce, and 1 pint of white wine.

  5. Squeeze the juice of 1 lemon into the tureen, then pour the soup over it.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Chive + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Onion + chivetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,907 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  5. Flour + chivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,168 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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 meat and gelatinous body that gives the soup its substance.
Onions
Softened and browned in butter to add sweetness and depth to the soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup body when cooked briefly with the fried onions.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the rich broth.
Lemon
Adds fresh acidity to balance the richness of the soup.

The step that matters

Frying the onions in butter and flour. Onions must reach golden brown and the flour must cook briefly; undercooked flour leaves a raw, pasty taste and poor thickening, while over-browning makes the soup bitter.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, butter, flour, chive, parsley, egg):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, butter, flour, chive, parsley, egg. 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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