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Calf’s Head À LA Vinaigrette

A boiled calf head served with a vinegar sauce and vegetables.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,097 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Calf’s Head À LA Vinaigrette

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the jaws from the calf's head and soak it in cold water overnight.

  2. Blanch the head in boiling water.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil the flour in water and add the calf's head to the pot along with parsley, green onions, carrots, and parsnips.

  2. Once cooked, drain the head and serve it with vinegar sauce.

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. Carrot + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,097 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. Parsley + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together484 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Flour + parsniptop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together669 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Calf's head
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender and gelatinous during long simmering.
Flour
Boiled in water to thicken the cooking liquid, adding body to the broth.
Parsley
Adds a fresh, herbal aroma to the cooking liquid.
Carrots
Add sweetness and aroma to the cooking liquid as it simmers.
Parsnips
Add sweetness and earthy flavor to the cooking liquid as it simmers.

The step that matters

Blanch the head in boiling water. Brief blanching in boiling water helps remove surface impurities and blood, which otherwise can cloud the cooking liquid and taint the flavor of the finished dish.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, parsley, carrot, parsnip, vinegar, sauce):

  1. Turnipfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Beetrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, parsley, carrot, parsnip, vinegar, sauce. 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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