Skip to main content
Main

Modern Cookery

A soup made from a calf's head, skin, and tongue, simmered in stock and thickened with a rice flour batter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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

Prepare the broth

  1. Combine water, salt, herbs, onion, celery, carrots, turnips, mace, cloves, and peppercorns in a large pot.

  2. Bring to a boil and simmer gently for 6-7 hours until reduced by half.

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

Prepare and stew the head

  1. Remove the bone from the calf's head. Wash the calf's head. Roll the calf's head. Bind the calf's head with twine.

  2. Place the head in a stewpot with the bones and tongue, cover with beef stock, and stew for 1.5 hours.

  3. Cool the head in the stock to prevent drying or discoloration. Remove the head before it is completely cold.

  4. Strain the head. Skim off the fat.

Make the soup

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

  2. Add the head cut into small slices or inch squares. Add all the skin and tongue to the soup. Simmer until the skin is tender.

  3. Mix rice flour with cayenne, mace, and enough cold broth or water to achieve a batter consistency. Stir the mixture into the soup. Boil.

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. 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

Calf's head
Provides the main meat, skin and gelatin that give the soup its body and richness.
Beef stock
Forms the savoury liquid base that carries the flavour of the whole soup.
Rice flour
Thickens the soup into a smooth body when stirred in as a batter and boiled.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds concentrated savoury depth and umami to the finished soup.
Onion
Contributes savoury sweetness and aroma to the broth as it simmers.

The step that matters

Boil after stirring in the rice flour batter. Raw starch only thickens once it reaches a boil, and the flour must be fully dispersed first. Stirring in a smooth batter prevents lumps, and boiling gelatinises the starch so the soup thickens evenly and loses its floury taste.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, celery, carrot, turnip, clove, beef, rice):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, celery, carrot, turnip, clove, beef, 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.

You might also like

Roast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipes