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Sheep's Head Soup

A hearty soup made from sheep heads, herbs, vegetables, and a smooth brain purée, finished with butter, oatmeal, and wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and leek 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 ↓

Sheep's Head Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the heads

  1. Wash the sheep's heads.

  2. Split the heads.

  3. Soak the heads in lukewarm water.

  4. Remove the brains from the heads.

  5. Place the brains in a stewpan with the herbs, carrots, turnip, onions, leek, celery, sugar, mustard, pepper, and salt.

  6. Pour the water over the ingredients.

Make the soup

  1. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  2. Skim off scum.

  3. Simmer gently for 2 hours.

  4. Wash the brains.

  5. Remove any fibers from the brains.

  6. Boil the brains for 15 minutes.

  7. Beat the brains until smooth.

  8. Mix the beaten brains with butter, oatmeal, mushroom ketchup, and tarragon vinegar.

  9. Stir the mixture into the soup.

  10. Let the soup simmer for another 2 hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Skin the tongues.

  2. Cut the tongues and the meat from the heads into bite-sized pieces.

  3. Heat the pieces in the soup.

  4. Add the light wine.

  5. Serve.

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. Turnip + leektop 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. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Turnip + celerytop 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

Sheep's heads
Provide the main meat and gelatinous body of the soup.
Brains (in the method)
Beaten smooth with butter and oatmeal, they thicken and enrich the soup's texture.
Oatmeal
Absorbs liquid and thickens the brain mixture, giving the soup body.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving a smoother mouthfeel to the brain mixture.
Carrots
Release sweetness and body into the broth during the long simmer.
Onions
Build savoury depth and aroma as they soften in the broth.

The step that matters

Skim off scum. Foam and impurities rising early in the boil can cloud the broth and carry off-flavours, so they must be removed before the long simmer.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Beetrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, leek, celery, sugar, mustard, 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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