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Calf’s Head, to Hash. No. 1.

A hash made from boiled calf's head, onions, herbs, and seasonings, served with fried brains and bacon or ham slices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 20 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Calf’s Head, to Hash. No. 1.

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head

  1. Wash the calf's head clean and boil it until tender.

  2. Cut the meat off one half of the head into small slices.

  3. Score the other half of the head in a diamond pattern.

  4. Rub with oiled butter and egg yolk.

  5. Mix chopped parsley, thyme, pepper, salt, nutmeg, and bread crumbs.

  6. Cover the head with this mixture.

  7. Broil the head until light brown.

Make the hash

  1. In a stewpan, heat butter and sauté parsley, thyme, and a little onion until tender.

  2. Add flour, pepper, salt, and broth according to the amount of meat.

  3. Let it boil and skim.

  4. Add the meat, lemon juice, and white wine.

  5. Boil together for about 10 minutes.

Prepare the brains and serve

  1. Scald the brains and cut them into four pieces.

  2. Rub with egg yolk and crumb with the same mixture as the head.

  3. Fry the brains until light brown.

  4. Place the broiled head on the hash when serving.

  5. Arrange the brains around the dish with fried bacon or ham slices.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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 meat, which becomes tender through long boiling and is then sliced for the hash.
Egg yolks
Add richness and bind the surface so the crumb coating holds during broiling.
Butter
Adds fat and flavor and browns the sautéed aromatics and the crumb coating.
Flour
Thickens the broth into a sauce that clings to the meat.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned crust over the head when broiled.

The step that matters

Broil the head until light brown. Broiling browns the crumb and butter crust quickly, so it can scorch before the surface is evenly golden. Watch closely and remove it once light brown.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, onion, egg, parsley, thyme, butter, flour):

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Avocadofits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, onion, egg, parsley, thyme, butter, flour. 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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