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Calves' Ears Stuffed

A dish of boiled calf ears stuffed with liver, bacon, ham, bread, herbs, and egg, then fried and served in gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Ham and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,536 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Calves' Ears Stuffed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ears

  1. Scald the calves' ears, then clean them.

  2. Cut the ears close to the head.

  3. Boil the ears until tender.

  4. Blanch the ears in cold water.

  5. Ensure the gristle next to the head is smooth so the ears can stand upright.

Stuff and fry

  1. Prepare a stuffing with liver, bacon, ham, soaked bread, herbs, egg, salt, and mace.

  2. Fill the ears with the stuffing.

  3. Rub egg over the stuffed ears.

  4. Fry the ears until light brown.

Serve

  1. Serve the ears in brown or white gravy.

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. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  2. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Liver + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together731 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Ham + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

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

  5. Liver + hamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together298 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

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

What each ingredient does

Calves' ears
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender through boiling and holding the stuffing.
Calf's liver or cold chicken
Adds richness and a savoury, meaty body to the stuffing.
Fat bacon
Adds fat that keeps the stuffing moist and carries flavour through the filling.
Bread
Soaked and mixed in, it adds moisture and a lighter texture to the stuffing.
Unbeaten egg
Binds the stuffing so it holds together when the ears are filled and fried.
Egg for glazing
Helps the outside brown when the stuffed ears are fried.

The step that matters

Fry the ears until light brown. Egg glaze browns through Maillard reactions at the surface; frying too long or too hot can dry or scorch the outside before the filling is hot through.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, ham, bread, cream, egg):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, ham, bread, cream, 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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