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Calf's Head Fricasseed

A fricassee made from half-boiled calf's head, gravy, herbs, and cream, served with bacon bits and forcemeat balls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Calf's Head Fricasseed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the half-boiled calf's head into small pieces.

Make the fricassee

  1. In a pot, combine the meat with gravy, boiling water, sweet herbs, onion, and mace.

  2. Season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

  3. Mix flour and butter to form a paste, then add to the pot and bring to a boil.

  4. Remove the herbs and onion, then stir in the cream without boiling.

Serve

  1. Serve with rolled bacon bits and 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. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Calf's head
Provides the main body of meat, which becomes tender through the slow simmering in liquid.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth gravy when cooked with the butter.
Butter
Combines with the flour to form a paste and adds richness to the sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, mellow texture to the finished sauce.
Gravy made from bones
Supplies the savoury, meaty base that flavours the whole fricassee.

The step that matters

Stir in the cream without boiling. Cream can curdle or separate when boiled, so it should be stirred in off the heat or at a gentle warmth to keep the sauce smooth.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, pepper, nutmeg, flour, butter, cream):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, pepper, nutmeg, flour, butter, cream. 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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