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Hashed Calps Head

A hash of boiled head meat simmered with gravy, onion, herbs, and sherry, finished with lemon juice and garnished with egg or forcemeat balls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Hashed Calps Head

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the head of meat for 2 hours the night before or use cold remains.

  2. Cut the meat into small pieces and dust with flour.

Make the sauce

  1. In a stewpan, melt butter and add flour, stirring until brown.

  2. Add gravy, chopped onion, sweet herbs, and sherry; simmer for 5 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the meat, season with cayenne and salt, and squeeze in lemon juice.

  2. Garnish with egg or forcemeat balls before serving.

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

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Head meat
Provides the main body and texture of the dish once cut into pieces.
Butter and flour
Form a browned roux that thickens the gravy and adds nutty flavour.
Good gravy
Supplies the liquid base and savoury depth for the sauce.
Sherry
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth to the simmered sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, savoury sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour into the butter until brown. Cooking the roux until it browns gives nutty flavour and colour, but it can scorch quickly over heat. Constant stirring keeps it even, and the roux must be cooked before the gravy is added so it thickens smoothly.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, flour, butter, sherry, pepper, lemon, 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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