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To Make Potted-head

A gelatinous dish made by boiling a bull's head and cow heel, then setting the broth to form a jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

To Make Potted-head

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Soak the bullock's head and cow heel in warm water for 2-3 hours.

  2. Boil them together until tender.

  3. Cut into small pieces and set aside.

Make the jelly

  1. Strain the boiling liquid and let it cool to skim off the fat.

  2. Put the pieces back in the saucepan with the strained liquid and boil for 30 minutes.

  3. Season with pepper and salt to taste.

Set and serve

  1. Pour into basins or molds and place in a cool area to set.

  2. Once cold, it will form a jelly.

  3. Turn it out onto a dish for serving; if it doesn't release easily, dip the basin in hot water to loosen.

  4. Garnish with fresh parsley before serving.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Bullock's head
Provides the meat and collagen that set into a firm, sliceable texture.
Cow heel
Adds collagen-rich gelatin that helps the cooled liquid set into a jelly.

The step that matters

Skimming the fat after straining. Fat left in the cooled liquid can keep the jelly greasy and cloudy, so it should be lifted off once the liquid has cooled and the fat has risen to the surface.

“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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