Skip to main content
Main

Sheep's Head Broth

A hearty broth made from a sheep's head, trotters, barley, carrots, turnips, peas, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Sheep's Head Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Singe off all the wool from the sheep's head and remove the eyes.

  2. Wash the head thoroughly inside and rub it with a cloth.

  3. Clean the trotters well and split both the head and trotters, removing the tendons.

  4. Soak the head and trotters in water for a while.

Make the broth

  1. In a large pot, combine the head, trotters, and 1 gallon of water; simmer for 8 hours.

  2. Add the pearl barley, carrots, and turnips; cook until tender.

  3. Grate a carrot into the soup and add green peas if available.

  4. Season with coarse sea salt and skim off any fat that rises.

Serve

  1. Before serving, remove the head and trotters, placing them on a dish garnished with vegetables.

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 + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Barley + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together629 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Barley + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together784 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Carrot + peastop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,994 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  5. Turnip + peastop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,350 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Sheep's head
Gives the broth deep, rich meaty flavour and gelatin as it simmers.
Trotters
Add gelatin from connective tissue, giving the broth body and a silky mouthfeel.
Pearl barley
Thickens the broth as its starch releases during cooking, adding body and chew.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and earthy flavour that soften during long simmering.

The step that matters

Skimming the fat. Fat rising during a long simmer can make the broth greasy and cloudy. Skimming it off keeps the broth clean-tasting and clear.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (barley, carrot, turnip):

  1. Lentilsfits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against barley, carrot, turnip. 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

Green PeasGreen Peas229 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesTurnip SoupTurnip Soup43 recipesGreen Peas SoupGreen Peas Soup35 recipes