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A hearty soup made from boiled calf's head, vegetables, and a rice flour thickener, finished with sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Modern Cookery

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Combine celery, carrots, turnips, mace, cloves, and peppercorns in a large pot.

  2. Boil gently for 6 to 7 hours.

  3. Strain into a clean pan.

Cook the head

  1. Remove the bone from the calf’s head, wash it, roll it up, and bind it with twine.

  2. Place the head in a stewpan with the bones and tongue, and cover with beef stock.

  3. Stew for 1.5 hours.

  4. Cool in the liquid to prevent drying.

  5. Remove before completely cold, strain, and skim off the fat.

  6. Heat 5 pints of the stock in a large saucepan.

  7. Cut the head into small thick slices or 1-inch squares, adding skin and tongue to the soup.

  8. If the head is not tender, simmer gently until it is.

Finish the soup

  1. Mix rice flour with cayenne, mace, and enough cold broth or water to make a batter consistency.

  2. Boil the mixture in the soup for 8 to 10 minutes, skimming off any scum.

  3. Stir in sherry before serving.

  4. Serve the soup with fried forcemeat balls and a splash of lemon juice or other acid if desired.

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. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Celery + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Turnip + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,233 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

Calf’s head
Provides the meat, skin and gelatin that give the soup its body and richness.
Rice flour
Thickens the broth into a smooth, lightly body-rich soup when boiled.
Beef stock
Forms the savoury liquid base that carries the flavour of the whole soup.
Sherry
Adds a fragrant, slightly sweet and acidic note stirred in at the end.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds deep savoury, umami flavour to the soup.

The step that matters

Cool the head in its liquid. Cooling the cooked head slowly in its own stock keeps the meat moist and prevents it from drying out and toughening as it chills.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, carrot, turnip, clove, beef, rice, flour):

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, carrot, turnip, clove, beef, rice, flour. 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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