Skip to main content
Main

Sheep's Head, Hashed

A hash made from boiled sheep's head and tongue, seasoned with flour, herbs, and sauce, served with minced brains.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Sheep's Head, Hashed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head

  1. Wash the sheep's head, split it in half, and soak in lukewarm water.

  2. Remove the brains and soak them in cold water until needed.

  3. Place the head and tongue in a saucepan with two onions and sweet herbs, cover with cold water, and bring to a boil. Skim the surface.

  4. Reduce heat and let simmer until cooked through.

Make the hash

  1. Remove the head, slice the meat, and season with flour and pepper.

  2. In a clean saucepan, add the minced onions from boiling and the sliced meat.

  3. Mix ½ cup of the cooking liquid with 1 tablespoon of flour to make a smooth paste. Stir the paste into the saucepan.

  4. Add 1 tablespoon of store sauce, and season with salt and pepper if needed.

  5. Simmer gently for 30 minutes without boiling.

  6. Serve the hash on a hot dish, garnished with toasted sippets.

Prepare the brains and tongue

  1. Tie the brains in muslin. Boil for 15 minutes.

  2. Mince the brains. Mix the minced brains with 1 tablespoon of chopped parsley, ½ cup of milk, and ½ cup of cooking liquid.

  3. Boil for a few minutes. Thicken with flour and butter. Season with salt and pepper.

  4. Keep the tongue hot. Skin the tongue. Place it in the center of a dish. Pour the brains around it before serving.

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. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  4. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Sheep's head
Forms the main meat of the hash, becoming tender through long gentle simmering.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth paste that gives the hash body.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the minced brain sauce.
Onions
Add savory sweetness and aroma to the cooking liquid and hash.
Brains
Enrich the sauce with a soft, creamy texture when minced and blended in.

The step that matters

Simmer gently without boiling. Boiling toughens meat proteins and can break up the thickened sauce, so a gentle simmer keeps the hash tender and smooth.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, pepper, sauce, parsley, milk):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, pepper, sauce, parsley, milk. 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes