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A soup made with calf's head, bones, tongue, skin, and vegetables simmered in stock.

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. Simmer gently for 6 to 7 hours.

  3. Strain the mixture into a clean pan and set aside.

Prepare the head

  1. Remove the bone from the calf's head and wash the calf's head.

  2. Roll the calf's head up and bind the rolled head with twine.

  3. Place the rolled head in a stewpan and add the bones and tongue.

  4. Cover with beef stock and stew for 1.5 hours.

  5. Transfer the head to a deep earthen pan and let it cool in the stock to prevent drying.

  6. Once cool, strain and skim the fat from the stock.

  7. Reserve some fat.

Make the soup

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

  2. Cut the head into small thick slices or 1-inch squares and add the sliced head to the stock.

  3. Add all the skin and tongue to the soup.

  4. If the skin is not tender, simmer until it is.

  5. Mix the rice flour with cayenne, mace, and enough cold broth or water to make a batter consistency, then stir the mixture into the soup.

  6. Boil for 8 to 10 minutes and skim off any scum.

  7. Add the sherry.

  8. Serve the soup with fried forcemeat balls, and add a splash of lemon juice 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 main body of meat, skin and gelatin that give the soup its rich, thick character.
Rice flour
Thickens the stock into a light, batter-like body as it boils.
Beef stock
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavour of the whole soup.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds deep savoury, umami flavour to the soup.
Sherry
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth at the end of cooking.
Celery
Builds a aromatic vegetable base that flavours the stock during the long simmer.

The step that matters

Let the head cool in the stock. Cooling the head slowly in its own stock keeps the meat moist and stops it drying out, while the gelatin from the skin and bones settles into the liquid.

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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