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To Dress Calf's Head As Terrapin

A dish of calf's head prepared like terrapin, simmered with brains, tongue, egg yolks, flour, butter, cream, and wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

To Dress Calf's Head As Terrapin

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head

  1. Soak the cleaned calf's head in water, changing the water several times until thoroughly clean.

  2. Remove the brains and tongue, then cover the head with water and boil for 30 minutes.

  3. Cut the meat into small pieces and reserve a bowl of the cooking liquid.

Make the terrapin

  1. In a bowl, beat together the hard-boiled egg yolks and browned flour with the butter.

  2. In a pot, combine the meat with the reserved cooking liquid and heat.

  3. Stir in the flour mixture and bring to a boil.

  4. Add the cream just before serving and stir in the wine.

  5. Serve very hot.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Hard-boiled egg yolks
Enrich the sauce and give it a smooth, thick, custard-like body.
Browned flour
Thickens the liquid and adds a toasted, nutty flavour.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and softens the sauce's flavour when stirred in at the end.
Wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brightens the rich sauce.

The step that matters

Add the flour mixture and bring to a boil. Egg yolks and flour must be heated enough to thicken the sauce, but boiling too hard after the cream goes in can curdle it. Stir constantly while the liquid comes up to a boil.

“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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