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A broth made by simmering a head of meat with water and optional seasonings, served hot with sauces.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Meat and ham are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,095 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Modern Cookery

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and simmer

  1. Break the bones of the head and place it in a pot.

  2. Add enough cold water to cover the head.

  3. Simmer gently for 1 hour and 15 minutes to 1 hour and 45 minutes until very tender.

Serve and keep

  1. Remove the head and serve hot with curry sauce, oyster sauce, or egg sauce and brown gravy.

  2. If saving for later use, do not pour gravy over it and leave the binding on for several hours.

  3. Boil the remaining gravy until well reduced and jellied when cold.

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. Meat + hamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Meat + parsleytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,040 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Ham + parsleytop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,249 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Meat from the head
Provides the main body, flavor, and gelatin-rich texture of the broth.
Cold water
Extracts flavor and collagen from the meat and bones as it simmers.
Calf's foot
Adds extra gelatin, helping the gravy set into a jelly when cold.

The step that matters

Simmering gently until very tender. Gentle simmering lets collagen break down into gelatin slowly, making the meat tender and the liquid rich. A hard boil can toughen the meat and make the broth cloudy.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, ham):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Clovefits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, ham. 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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