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Sheep's Head Soup

A soup made from a sheep's head, vegetables, herbs, and force-meat balls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Sheep's Head Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the soup

  1. Soak the sheep's head in tepid water for 1 hour.

  2. In a pot, combine the soaked head, sliced vegetables, chopped herbs, and cold water.

  3. Cook gently for 4 hours.

  4. Strain the soup.

  5. Rub the vegetables through a sieve.

  6. Let the soup cool slightly to remove the fat from the top.

  7. Return the soup to the heat.

  8. Season with salt and pepper.

Make the force-meat balls

  1. Chop the brains and mix with an equal quantity of crumbs, salt, pepper, and 1 raw egg.

  2. Add enough flour to form small balls.

  3. Fry the balls until golden brown and drain in a colander.

  4. Add the fried balls to a tureen.

Finish and serve

  1. Skim the boiling soup.

  2. Stir in the corn starch mixed with ½ cup milk.

  3. Add the tongue, skinned and diced.

  4. Boil once.

  5. Pour the soup into the tureen.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + corntop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together794 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 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

Sheep's head
Gives the soup its rich, gelatinous body and meaty flavour as it cooks slowly.
Egg
Binds the chopped brains and crumbs so the force-meat balls hold their shape.
Corn starch
Thickens the soup as it comes to the boil, giving it a smoother body.
Milk
Adds richness and softens the thickened soup's flavour.
Onions
Build savoury aromatic flavour in the broth during the long simmer.

The step that matters

Skim the boiling soup. Fat and foam rise to the surface and can make the soup greasy and cloudy. Removing them before thickening keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, parsley, egg, meat, corn, pepper, milk):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, parsley, egg, meat, corn, pepper, 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.

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