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Calf's Head Hashed, or Ragout

A hash of boiled calf's head, bread crumbs, herbs, and gravy, served with bacon and brain cakes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Calf's Head Hashed, or Ragout

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head

  1. Wash the calf's head and boil it until tender.

  2. Remove the bones from half of the head and score it superficially.

  3. Beat the egg and brush it over the scored head.

  4. Sprinkle grated bread, lemon peel, thyme, and parsley on top.

  5. Add bread crumbs and place in a Dutch oven to brown.

Make the hash

  1. Cut the other half of the head into slices and place in a stewpan.

  2. Add beef gravy, white wine, and catsup to the stewpan.

  3. Warm the meat in the stewpan and skim off the fat.

Brains, tongue and serving

  1. Peel the tongue and serve it with brains as a side dish.

  2. For the brains, mix with flour, eggs, lemon peel, thyme, parsley, and seasonings.

  3. Fry the brain mixture in small cakes until light brown.

  4. Serve the hash with the browned half of the head in the center, garnished with bacon and brain cakes.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Calf's head
Forms the main meat, becoming tender when boiled and then browned or sliced.
Egg
Binds the crumb coating and gives the browned surface a set, golden crust.
Grated bread
Forms a crumb coating that absorbs moisture and browns in the oven.
Beef gravy
Adds moisture and savoury depth, keeping the sliced meat juicy when warmed.

The step that matters

Warm the meat in the stewpan and skim off the fat. Gentle warming keeps sliced meat from drying out or toughening, and skimming removes loose fat so the gravy stays clean-tasting rather than greasy.

“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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