Skip to main content
Main

Calfs Head Au Gratin

A roasted calf's head with tongue, brain, onion, carrot, parsley, and tomato sauce, baked with breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Calfs Head Au Gratin

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Wash the calf's head.

  2. Parboil the tongue and brain.

  3. Sprinkle the tongue and brain lightly with salt and set aside.

  4. Cover the head with cold water.

  5. Bring the head to a boil.

  6. Plunge the head into ice water to firm and whiten it.

  7. Wash the head with vinegar.

Cook

  1. Place the head in boiling water mixed with 2 tablespoons of vinegar.

  2. Add the sliced onion, carrot, minced parsley, black peppercorns, and salt.

  3. Cook gently for 2 hours or until the cheekbones slip out easily.

  4. Transfer the head to a baking pan.

  5. Remove the bones and teeth from the head.

Bake and serve

  1. Rub the head with butter.

  2. Cover the head thickly with peppered and salted bread crumbs.

  3. Brown the head in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

  4. Serve with tomato sauce.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,606 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  5. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 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 dish, becoming tender through long gentle simmering.
Butter
Adds fat and richness and helps the bread crumbs brown in the oven.
Fine bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned crust over the head during baking.
Vinegar
Acidity in the poaching water helps whiten the meat and firm its surface.

The step that matters

Cook gently for 2 hours. A gentle simmer keeps the meat tender and intact; a hard boil toughens proteins and can break the head apart. Doneness is shown when the cheekbones slip out easily.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, carrot, parsley, butter, bread, tomato, sauce):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, carrot, parsley, butter, bread, tomato, sauce. 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipes