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Cow's Head Soup

A hearty soup made from cow head halves, vegetables, peas, and seasonings, simmered for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Leek and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,046 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Cow's Head Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head

  1. Wash and parboil the halves of the cow's head in plenty of water for 20 minutes.

  2. Place the cow's head in a large pot that holds about 4 gallons.

Simmer the soup

  1. Add cleaned carrots, celery, onions, leeks, turnips, thyme, soaked peas, pepper, and salt.

  2. Fill the pot with cold water.

  3. Boil the soup gently for at least 4 hours, skimming occasionally.

Serve

  1. Serve the meat and larger pieces of vegetables separately.

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. Leek + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Leek + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together360 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Celery + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Cow's head
Provides meat and gelatin that give the soup body and richness as it simmers.
Peas
Thicken the broth as their starch softens during the long simmer.
Carrots
Add sweetness and color to the broth as they soften.
Onions
Contribute savory depth and aroma to the broth.

The step that matters

Skimming during the long simmer. Boiling rather than gently simmering breaks up fat and scum into the broth, making it cloudy and greasy. Skimming removes impurities that rise to the surface, keeping the soup clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, celery, onion, leek, turnip, thyme, pepper):

  1. Lentilsfits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Chickpeafits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, celery, onion, leek, turnip, thyme, 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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