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To Hash Calf's Head

A hash made from calf's head, onion, flour, butter, and rich gravy, finished with herbs, lemon, and optional forcemeat or ham.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

To Hash Calf's Head

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. If using a cooked calf's head, skip reboiling. If uncooked, soak it for 2 hours, then parboil.

  2. Cut the meat into slices about 1 inch thick and 3 inches long.

Make the hash

  1. In a stew pan, brown the sliced onion in flour and butter. If desired, add morels and truffles while browning the onion.

  2. Add the meat and enough rich gravy to cover it. Season with pepper, coarse sea salt, and cayenne.

  3. Bring to a boil, skim off any impurities, and simmer until the meat is tender.

Finish and serve

  1. A few minutes before serving, add finely shredded parsley and chopped sweet herbs.

  2. Squeeze in a little lemon juice and garnish with forcemeat balls or thin slices of broiled ham.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  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
Forms the main body of the hash, providing the meat that becomes tender during simmering.
Rich gravy
Supplies the liquid that moistens the meat and carries the seasoning during simmering.
Flour
Thickens the browned onion and butter base, helping the sauce cling to the meat.
Butter
Adds fat and richness and helps brown the sliced onion.
Onion
Browns in butter and flour to add savoury depth and sweetness to the sauce.
Lemon
Adds acidity that brightens the rich gravy and meat.

The step that matters

Simmering the meat until tender. Simmering gently keeps the meat moist and lets collagen break down slowly; a hard boil toughens the proteins and can leave the meat dry or stringy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, pepper, parsley, lemon, ham, truffle):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, pepper, parsley, lemon, ham, truffle. 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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