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Soup

Sheep's Head Broth

A clear broth made by simmering a sheep's head with vegetables and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and arrowroot share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 64 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Sheep's Head Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head

  1. Scald the sheep's head in hot water and scrape off all the hair with a sharp knife.

  2. Divide the head like a calf's head and place it in a saucepan with enough water to cover it.

  3. Add the onions, vinegar, and salt.

  4. Remove the scum as it rises.

  5. Once boiling, reduce to a simmer until the head is thoroughly cooked.

Make the soup

  1. Cool the broth, remove all the fat, and strain it.

  2. Return the broth to the heat.

  3. Add a quartered onion, sliced carrot, small turnip, and parsley.

  4. When it boils, sprinkle in the rice or pearl barley and season to taste.

  5. Let the soup stew until the rice or barley is cooked.

  6. For a thicker soup, add arrowroot or mashed potato.

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. Turnip + arrowroottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together64 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  3. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 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

Sheep's head
Provides the meat and bones that build the broth's body and flavour.
Rice or pearl barley
Absorbs liquid and swells during stewing, giving the soup body and substance.
Turnips
Soften during simmering and add a mild, slightly sweet vegetable flavour.
Carrot
Adds gentle sweetness and colour as it softens in the broth.
Arrowroot or mashed potato
Thickens the broth by binding water when heated.

The step that matters

Removing the scum and fat. Scum rising during boiling and fat left in the cooled broth can make the soup cloudy and greasy. Skimming as it rises and chilling the broth before straining keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the arrowroot

The recipe marks arrowroot as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, vinegar, turnip, carrot, parsley, rice):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Arrowrootthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, vinegar, turnip, carrot, parsley, rice. 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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