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To Hash a Calf's Head

A stew of calf's head with gravy, wine, spices, and optional sweetbreads, forcemeat balls, and brain garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

To Hash a Calf's Head

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head

  1. Boil the calf's head until the meat is almost tender.

  2. Cut the meat into thin slices.

Make the sauce

  1. In a pot, combine gravy, white wine, nutmeg, anchovies, onion with cloves, and mace; boil for 15 minutes.

  2. Strain the mixture and boil it again.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the meat and salt; let it stew for a bit.

  2. If desired, add sweetbreads and make forcemeat balls with veal.

  3. Mix the brains with the yolks of eggs and fry them for garnish.

  4. Before serving, stir in a bit of butter.

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. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. White wine + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. White wine + oniontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,535 recipes

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

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 that is boiled, sliced and stewed in the sauce.
Gravy
Forms the savoury liquid base of the sauce, giving body and meaty flavour.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the sauce as it reduces with the gravy.
Anchovies
Contribute deep savoury flavour that blends into the sauce without tasting fishy.
Butter
Adds richness and a glossy finish when stirred into the sauce at the end.

The step that matters

Boiling the calf's head until almost tender. Stopping at the right point leaves the meat tender enough to slice thinly yet firm enough to hold its shape while it stews in the sauce. Overcooking makes the slices fall apart.

Swap the onion

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

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

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