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To Hash Calf's Head

A savory hash made from calf's head meat, onions, and gravy, seasoned with pepper, salt, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,563 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

To Hash Calf's Head

Ingredients

Directions

Make the hash

  1. Brown the butter in a pan.

  2. Add flour and sliced onion, cooking until the onion is soft.

  3. Add the calf's head slices and good gravy to the pan, then bring to a boil and skim off any foam.

  4. Reduce heat to simmer until very tender.

  5. Season with pepper, salt, and Cayenne.

Finish and serve

  1. Ten minutes before serving, stir in parsley, tarragon, and marjoram.

  2. Just before serving, add a squeeze of lemon.

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. Parsley + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Pepper + tarragontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Browns and adds rich, nutty flavour to the base of the hash.
Flour
Thickens the gravy into a smooth sauce as it cooks with the butter.
Calf's head meat
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender through slow simmering.
Good gravy
Supplies the liquid and savoury depth that the hash simmers in.
Onion
Softens and adds sweetness and aroma to the sauce.

The step that matters

Simmer until very tender. Calf's head meat is tough and needs long, gentle simmering so collagen breaks down into gelatin. Boiling hard can toughen the meat and make the sauce cloudy, so keep the heat low.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, meat, truffle, pepper, parsley, tarragon):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, meat, truffle, pepper, parsley, tarragon. 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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