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Sheep’s Head Broth

A broth made by boiling a sheep's head with water, rice, barley, vegetables, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and barley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 568 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Sheep’s Head Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and soak the sheep's head, then split it and remove the brains.

Make the broth

  1. In a large pot, bring the head and cold water to a boil, adding a little salt.

  2. Skim off any impurities, then add the vegetables and parsley.

  3. Add the washed and soaked rice and barley, and boil until everything is perfectly tender.

Serve

  1. Serve the head separately, along with some of the vegetables.

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. Rice + barleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together568 recipes

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

  2. Barley + parsleytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together630 recipes

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

  3. Rice + parsleytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,762 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
Provides the main meat and rich, gelatinous body to the broth as it simmers.
Broken rice
Thickens the broth slightly and adds body as its starch releases during boiling.
Pearl barley
Softens during long boiling and adds body and a chewy texture to the broth.

The step that matters

Skimming impurities. Foam and scum rising during the first boil can make the broth cloudy and off-flavoured, so they should be removed before the vegetables and grains go in.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, barley):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, barley. 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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