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Calf's Head Soup

A soup made from calf's head, bones, and spices, simmered with butter, flour, ketchup, wine, and aromatics.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,331 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Calf's Head Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the calf's head and remove the brains.

  2. Place the head in a pot with 1 gallon of water and boil until it falls apart.

  3. Remove all bones and return the meat to the pot.

Make the soup

  1. Add butter, browned flour, tomato ketchup, allspice, and grated nutmeg.

  2. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

  3. When the soup is nearly ready, fry the brains and add them to the pot.

  4. A few minutes before serving, stir in the wine, cloves, and mace.

Serve

  1. Serve in a tureen, garnished with thin lemon slices or hard-boiled eggs if desired.

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. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  5. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 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
Forms the main body of the soup, supplying meat and gelatin as it cooks down.
Browned flour
Thickens the soup and adds a toasted, deeper color and flavor.
Tomato ketchup
Adds sweetness and acidity, rounding out the savory broth.
Wine
Adds acidity and aromatic depth when stirred in near the end.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Stir in the wine, cloves, and mace just before serving. Cloves and mace are aromatic compounds that fade and can turn bitter with prolonged heat, so adding them late keeps their fragrance bright. Wine's volatile aromas also dissipate when simmered too long.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, ketchup, allspice, nutmeg, pepper, wine):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Arrowrootfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, ketchup, allspice, nutmeg, pepper, wine. 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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