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Calves' Head Soup

A soup made from a calf's head, broth, diced potatoes, dumplings, and meatballs, finished with sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Calves' Head Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head

  1. Soak the calves' head in water, then in salt water to boil.

  2. Remove the brains and tie them in a bag to boil.

  3. Strain the broth and cut all meat and brains into small dice.

Make the soup

  1. In a bowl, mix flour, water, and lard to make small dumplings.

  2. Add diced potatoes, red pepper, pot herbs, marjoram, and chopped eggs to the broth.

  3. For meatballs, mix ground meat with salt, pepper, and flour, then fry in butter.

  4. Serve the soup with meatballs and add sherry to taste.

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. Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Parsley + dilltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together669 recipes

    Shared aroma: p-mentha-1,3,8-triene (camphor, herbal).

  5. Thyme + dilltop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together164 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (apple, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Calves' head
Provides the meat and broth base that gives the soup its body and flavour.
All-purpose flour
Binds the dumplings and meatballs so they hold their shape while cooking.
Lard
Adds fat that makes the dumplings tender and rich.
Potatoes
Add starch that thickens the broth and gives it substance.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add richness and body to the soup through their yolks and whites.
Ground meat
Forms the meatballs, adding savoury meaty flavour and texture.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, pepper, parsley, thyme, dill, marjoram, egg):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, pepper, parsley, thyme, dill, marjoram, egg. 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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