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To Make Calf's Head Soup

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Marjoram and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

To Make Calf's Head Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the calf's head, liver, and lights in 6 quarts of water until the bones can be removed.

  2. Season the meat with pepper, salt, sweet marjoram, thyme, sage, mace, and cloves.

  3. Skim off any fat from the water, then return the meat to the pot and boil until fully cooked.

  4. Just before serving, add the wine and burnt sugar.

  5. Thicken the soup with butter and flour.

  6. For a richer soup, add a knuckle of veal while boiling.

  7. If making the dish without soup, season the boiled head with some of the cooking water and thicken with butter and flour, then bake until done.

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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

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

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

  3. Thyme + sagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,485 recipes

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

  4. Marjoram + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Thyme + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, pepper, marjoram, thyme, sage, clove, wine):

  1. Rosemaryfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, pepper, marjoram, thyme, sage, clove, wine. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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