Skip to main content
Main

Calf's Ears with Turtle Sauce

A stew of calf's ears braised with bacon, wine, consommé, lemon, herbs, and spices, finished with a yolk and turtle sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Basil and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 688 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Calf's Ears with Turtle Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Line a stewpan with fat bacon.

  2. Put the cleaned and blanched calf's ears in the pan and cover with more fat bacon.

Braise

  1. Moisten with white wine and consommé.

  2. Add lemon slices, seasoned faggot, carrot, onion, cloves, and spices.

  3. Cook on a gentle fire until done, then drain.

Serve

  1. Dish the ears and place a yolk of a hard-boiled egg in each.

  2. Sauce with turtle or mock turtle soup, or make a white roux and use the boiling liquid from the ears.

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. Basil + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together688 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Lemon + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together957 recipes

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

  3. Marjoram + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together687 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Lemon + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,823 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Marjoram + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Calf's ears
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender and gelatinous when cooked slowly in liquid.
Fat bacon
Lines and covers the ears, adding fat and savory flavour as it renders during gentle cooking.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the cooking liquid, lightly flavouring the ears and sauce.
Consommé
Supplies a clear, savoury stock that moistens the ears and forms the base of the sauce.
Hard-boiled egg yolk
Adds richness and a crumbly, creamy texture to each serving.

The step that matters

Cook on a gentle fire until done. Calf's ears are rich in collagen that must break down slowly in moist heat to become tender. A rapid boil toughens the surface and leaves the meat firm and stringy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (white wine, lemon, basil, marjoram, carrot, clove, egg):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against white wine, lemon, basil, marjoram, carrot, clove, egg. 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.

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes