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Calf's Head Soup

A soup made from a calf's head, brains, wine, spices, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Calf's Head Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head

  1. Place the calf's head in 1½ gallons of water and boil until the meat falls off the bones.

  2. Remove the head, chop the meat very fine, and set aside.

Make the filling

  1. Take out the brains and mix them with 1 pint of claret or port wine, 1 teaspoon of salt, and ⅓ cup of Madeira wine.

  2. Combine the brain mixture with the chopped meat, minced onion, chopped parsley, cloves, allspice, black pepper, sage, thyme, and the butter.

  3. Work in a little flour and add the mixture to the soup.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + sagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together331 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + sagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,445 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Parsley + allspicetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,289 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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 body and a rich, savory flavor.
Brains (in the method)
Add richness and a smooth, creamy texture to the meat mixture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavor and smoothing the mixture.
Flour
Thickens the soup, giving it a fuller, more velvety body.
Claret or port wine
Adds acidity and fruity depth that balances the rich meat.

The step that matters

Work in a little flour and add the mixture to the soup. Flour must be worked smoothly into the mixture before it goes into the liquid; otherwise it can clump and fail to thicken the soup evenly, since starch needs to disperse before it swells with heat.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (port wine, madeira wine, parsley, clove, allspice, pepper, sage):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against port wine, madeira wine, parsley, clove, allspice, pepper, sage. 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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