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Calf's Head Soup

A hearty soup made from a calf's head, bones, and meat simmered with tomatoes, spices, and onions.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Summer savory and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 125 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Calf's Head Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head

  1. Thoroughly wash the cleaned calf's head again.

  2. Remove the brains and tongue.

  3. Tie the brains in a piece of muslin.

  4. Place the head, brains, and tongue in a pot and cover with 4 quarts of water.

  5. Boil for 3 to 4 hours.

  6. Strain the stock through a sieve.

  7. Set the strained stock aside until the next day.

  8. Pick the meat from the bones.

  9. Cover the bones with water.

  10. Boil the bones for 3 hours.

  11. Strain the broth.

Make the soup

  1. Add the broth to the jellied stock an hour or two before serving.

  2. Add the diced meat, canned tomatoes, cloves, allspice, summer savory, sweet marjoram, salt, and chopped onion.

  3. Boil gently for about 1 hour.

  4. Stir in 3 tablespoons of browned flour mixed with a little stock or butter before serving.

Serve

  1. In a tureen, place the sliced hard-boiled eggs and lemon slices.

  2. Pour the soup over the eggs and lemon.

  3. Add sherry or brandy if desired.

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. Summer savory + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together125 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together342 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Allspice + summer savorytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together52 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Clove + marjoramtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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 meat and gelatin that give the soup its body and jellied stock.
Browned flour
Thickens the soup and adds a toasted, nutty flavour and colour.
Canned tomatoes
Add acidity and body to the broth, balancing the rich meat.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add soft texture and mild richness as a garnish in the tureen.
Lemon
Adds bright acidity that cuts the richness of the stock.

The step that matters

Stirring in the browned flour. Flour mixed into hot liquid without first being blended smooth with a little cold stock or butter forms lumps that do not dissolve. Mixing it into a paste first lets it disperse evenly and thicken the soup smoothly.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clove, allspice, summer savory, marjoram, onion, flour, egg):

  1. Turnipfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Arrowrootfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, allspice, summer savory, marjoram, onion, flour, 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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