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Calves Ears Stuffed

Calves' ears stuffed with liver, bacon, ham, bread, herbs, and egg, then fried and served with 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 and clean the calves' ears, cutting them close to the head.

  2. Boil the ears until tender, then blanch in cold water.

  3. Ensure the gristle next to the head is cut smooth for the ears to stand upright.

  4. Optionally, boil the ears in white gravy for added richness.

Stuff and coat

  1. Once cold, fill the cavity with a stuffing made from liver, bacon, ham, soaked bread, herbs, egg, salt, and mace.

  2. Rub egg over the ears and stuffing, then dip in bread crumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the ears until they are a beautiful light brown.

  2. Serve with brown or white gravy, or tomato sauce.

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
Main body of the dish; boiling makes them tender enough to stuff and eat.
Calf's liver
Adds rich, savoury flavour and a soft, moist texture to the stuffing.
Fat bacon
Melting fat keeps the stuffing moist and adds savoury flavour.
Bread
Soaked in cream or gravy, it binds the stuffing and keeps it moist.
Egg
Binds the stuffing together and, as a glaze, helps the crumbs brown during frying.

The step that matters

Cut the gristle smooth before stuffing. Smoothing the gristle beside the head lets the ears stand upright when served. Ears that are not tender or dry out during boiling will not hold the stuffing well.

Swap the mace

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

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

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