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Sheep's Head Soup

Soup made from a sheep's head, vegetables, milk, and forcemeat balls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Sheep's Head Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head

  1. Ask the butcher to clean and prepare the sheep's head, keeping the skin on and splitting it to remove the tongue and brains.

  2. Break the bone of the head.

  3. Wash it well in several waters.

  4. Soak in salted water for 30 minutes.

Make the broth

  1. Cover with fresh water.

  2. Heat gradually to a boil.

  3. Drain to remove any peculiar odor.

  4. Cover with 4 quarts of cold water.

  5. Add all the chopped vegetables.

  6. Simmer for 4 to 6 hours.

  7. Strain into a basin.

  8. Press all the nourishment out of the meat.

  9. Let it cool to remove the fat.

  10. Press the vegetables through a colander.

  11. Reserve them until the fat is removed.

Make the forcemeat balls

  1. Boil the tongue and brains separately.

  2. Chop them.

  3. Rub to a paste.

  4. Combine the paste with breadcrumbs, pepper, salt, parsley, and the egg to make forcemeat balls.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sheep's head
Gives the broth its body and rich flavour as it simmers for hours.
Egg
Binds the paste and breadcrumbs so the forcemeat balls hold their shape.
Fine breadcrumbs
Absorb moisture and give the forcemeat balls a light, firm texture.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and earthy flavour to the broth.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and colour to the broth.
Celery
Adds a fresh, aromatic savoury note to the broth.

The step that matters

Let the broth cool to remove the fat. Fat floats on the surface and sets as the broth cools, so it can be lifted off cleanly. Skipping this step leaves a greasy soup, so the broth must be fully chilled before the fat is removed.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turnip, carrot, celery, milk, pepper, parsley, egg):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turnip, carrot, celery, milk, pepper, parsley, egg. 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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