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A soup of calf's head, bones, and tongue simmered with vegetables and spices, thickened with rice flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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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

Make the base

  1. Combine celery, carrots, turnips, mace, cloves, and peppercorns in a large pot.

  2. Simmer gently for 6 to 7 hours.

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

Prepare the calf's head

  1. Remove the bone from the calf's head, wash it, roll it up, and bind it with tape.

  2. Place it in a stewpan with the bones and tongue.

  3. Cover with beef stock and simmer for 1.5 hours.

  4. Cool in the liquid to prevent drying.

  5. Once cool, strain and skim the fat from the stock.

Finish the soup

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

  2. Cut the calf's head into small thick slices or 1-inch squares and add to the soup, reserving some fat.

  3. Add all the skin and tongue to the soup.

  4. If the skin is not tender, simmer until it is.

  5. Mix the rice flour with cayenne, mace, and enough cold broth or water to make a batter.

  6. Stir the batter into the soup.

  7. Boil for 8 to 10 minutes, skimming off any scum.

  8. Add sherry.

  9. Serve with fried forcemeat balls and a splash of lemon juice if desired.

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. Turnip + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,233 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 body, gelatinous texture and rich meaty flavour of the soup.
Rice flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth, lightly bodied soup as it cooks.
Beef stock
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavour of the whole soup.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds savoury depth and umami to the finished soup.
Sherry
Adds aroma and a sweet, mellow fruitiness at the end of cooking.

The step that matters

Boil the batter-thickened soup for 8 to 10 minutes, skimming scum. Rice flour must be stirred in smoothly and boiled long enough to cook out its raw starch and thicken evenly. Skimming removes the scum that rises from the meat and skin, keeping the soup clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the mace

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

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

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