Skip to main content
Main

Calf's Head Cheese

A cold meat cheese made from calf's head, salt, herbs, and parsley, formed in cheesecloth and sliced.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Marjoram and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 507 recipes. Both carry 2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Calf's Head Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the head

  1. Place the calf's head in enough hot water to cover it and simmer until the meat separates from the bone.

  2. Remove the meat carefully.

  3. Chop the meat.

Shape and chill

  1. Add the seasonings.

  2. Pack the mixture into a small cheesecloth bag. Tie it tightly.

  3. Hang it to cool.

  4. Turn the bag inside out to remove the meat.

Serve

  1. Cut the cheese into thin slices. Serve cold.

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. Marjoram + sagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together507 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Summer savory + sagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together237 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Summer savory + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together241 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-rich connective tissue that binds the chopped meat into a firm loaf when cooled.
Salt
Seasons the meat and draws out flavor throughout the mixture.
Sage
Adds a warm, earthy aroma that complements the rich meat.

The step that matters

Simmering the head until the meat separates from the bone. The head must be fully covered in hot water and simmered gently; if it boils hard, the meat toughens and breaks up unevenly. Slow simmering also draws collagen from the bone and connective tissue into the liquid, which sets as gelatin when cooled and holds the cheese together.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (summer savory, parsley, marjoram, pepper, sage):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against summer savory, parsley, marjoram, 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.

More head cheese recipes

Calf's 5Pork 5Hogs 3Pig's 3 See all 91 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes