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Hashing and Mincing

A hash made from calf head meat, gravy, anchovy, spices, and brain cakes, served with mushrooms and pickles.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 21 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Hashing and Mincing

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Wash the calf's head thoroughly and boil it for 15 minutes.

  2. Once cooled, cut the meat and tongue into thin, broad dice.

Make the hash

  1. In a skillet, combine the meat with 1 quart of gravy and simmer for 45 minutes.

  2. Add the anchovy, mace, cayenne pepper, lemon pickle, walnut ketchup, truffles, morels, lemon slices, and sweet herbs.

  3. Mix 1/4 pound of butter with some flour and add it to the skillet a few minutes before the meat is done.

Make the brain cakes

  1. In a bowl, beat the brains with hot water until fine, then mix in 2 eggs, 1 tablespoon of flour, lemon peel, and chopped herbs.

  2. Season the mixture with salt and pepper, then drop spoonfuls into hot lard and fry until light brown.

Serve

  1. Remove the hash from the skillet and place it on a serving dish.

  2. Strain the gravy over the hash and top with mushrooms, forcemeat balls, hard-boiled egg yolks, and brain cakes.

  3. Garnish with sliced lemon and pickles.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Anchovy + ketchuptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together479 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Walnut + parsleytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together865 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

Calf's head
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through boiling and then simmering in gravy.
Butter
Enriches the gravy and, with flour, thickens it to a richer, smoother body.
Eggs
Bind the brain mixture so the brain cakes hold their shape while frying.
Truffles
Add a deep, earthy aroma to the gravy-based hash.
Morels
Add a meaty, earthy flavour and texture to the hash.
Anchovy
Adds a savoury depth to the gravy without tasting distinctly fishy.

The step that matters

Adding the butter and flour mixture. Flour must be fully worked into the butter and added near the end so it thickens the gravy smoothly; added too early or unmixed, it can clump or scorch and leave the sauce uneven.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (anchovy, pepper, lemon, walnut, ketchup, truffle, parsley):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against anchovy, pepper, lemon, walnut, ketchup, truffle, parsley. 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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