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Calf's Head Soup

A hearty soup made from calf head, heart, liver, feet, and assorted meats, simmered with onions, spices, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Calf's Head Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Prepare and wash the calf's head, heart, liver, and feet in warm water.

  2. Cover with 1 gallon of cold water and let stand for 1 hour.

  3. Cook slowly until the bones can be easily removed, then skim the broth.

  4. Remove from heat, place the tongue in cold water for 5 minutes, then peel and chop finely.

  5. Remove the meat from the head and heart, keeping the feet to cook longer.

  6. Chop the meat into small dice and add the chopped meat from the feet and the brain.

  7. Pour the broth through a sieve into a bowl.

Make the soup

  1. In a kettle, dry out the broth.

  2. Dredge the broth with 3 tablespoons of flour and rub in ¾ pound of butter.

  3. When browned, add 2 chopped onions and fry briefly.

  4. Layer in the meat, add ½ teaspoon of black pepper and 1 teaspoon of salt, and cook until browned.

  5. Add the broth and the chopped egg whites.

  6. In a tureen, place the egg yolks, grated nutmeg, lemon juice, and a few pieces of lemon rind.

  7. Pour in 1 teacup of claret, port wine, or sherry.

Make and fry the force meat balls

  1. For the force meat balls, mix reserved chopped meat with 1 raw egg, pepper, and salt.

  2. Form the mixture into small balls.

  3. Coat the balls in cracker dust.

  4. Fry the balls in hot lard.

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Calf's head
Provides the bulk of the meat and gelatin that give the broth body.
Calf's feet
Release gelatin during long simmering, giving the soup a richer, silkier body.
Flour
Thickens the broth by combining with butter to form a roux-like base.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavor and helping the flour brown.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the soup, adding smoothness and body.
Claret, port wine, or sherry
Adds acidity and depth of flavor to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Dredging the broth with flour and rubbing in butter. Flour must be fully incorporated and cooked until browned, or the soup will taste raw and may clump. Browning the roux-like base builds color and a nutty flavor before liquid is added.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, flour, butter, pepper, egg, nutmeg, lemon):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, flour, butter, pepper, egg, nutmeg, lemon. 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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