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Calf’s Head Hashed

A hash made from calf's head and tongue, stewed in gravy with anchovy, mace, cayenne pepper, truffles, morels, wine, and served with brain cakes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Truffle and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,209 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Calf’s Head Hashed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Parboil the calf's head and tongue.

  2. Cut the meat into thin slices.

Make the hash

  1. Stew the meat in good gravy for about 1 hour.

  2. Add anchovy, mace, cayenne pepper, truffles, morels, and wine.

  3. Thicken the gravy with butter and flour just before serving.

Make the brain cakes and serve

  1. Scald the brains and beat them with eggs, flour, lemon peel, parsley, and herbs.

  2. Form the mixture into small cakes and fry in boiling lard until brown.

  3. Serve the hash with gravy, mushrooms, forcemeat balls, and brain cakes.

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. Truffle + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Anchovy + eggtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,330 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Anchovy + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Wine + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Calf's head
Forms the main body of the hash, becoming tender when parboiled and stewed in gravy.
Eggs
Bind the brain mixture so the cakes hold their shape while frying.
Butter and flour
Thicken the gravy to a smooth, coating consistency just before serving.
Truffles and morels
Add earthy, aromatic flavour to the gravy during stewing.
Brains (in the method)
Form the soft interior of the brain cakes, enriched by the eggs and flour.

The step that matters

Frying the brain cakes in boiling lard until brown. Lard must be hot enough to brown the outside quickly. If it is too cool, the cakes absorb fat and turn greasy before a crisp crust forms, and the soft egg-bound interior can break apart.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (anchovy, pepper, truffle, wine, butter, flour, egg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against anchovy, pepper, truffle, wine, butter, flour, 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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