Skip to main content
Main

Calf’s Head, to Hash. No. 3

A hash made from boiled calf's head, brown butter, gravy, brains, eggs, cream, flour, nutmeg, parsley, bacon, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Calf’s Head, to Hash. No. 3

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head

  1. Cut the half-boiled calf's head into thin slices.

  2. Fry the slices in a pan with brown butter.

Stew and finish

  1. Add the gravy and stew until tender.

  2. Toss with burnt butter or butter rolled in flour.

Make the cakes and serve

  1. Mix brains with eggs, cream, flour, nutmeg, and parsley.

  2. Fry the mixture in small cakes.

  3. Garnish the dish with force-meat balls, fritters, bacon, and lemon.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  3. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 meat, which becomes tender after boiling and stewing in gravy.
Eggs
Bind the brain mixture so it holds its shape when fried into cakes.
Cream
Adds moisture and softness to the brain mixture, keeping the cakes tender.
Brains
Form the rich, soft base of the force-meat cakes.
Flour
Thickens the mixture and helps the cakes brown when fried.
Butter
Adds fat and nutty flavour for frying and for tossing the hash.

The step that matters

Stewing the slices in gravy until tender. Stewing slowly in liquid softens the connective tissue of the head. If it boils hard or is rushed, the slices stay tough and dry.

“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.

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesMeat CroquettesMeat Croquettes52 recipesMeatballsMeatballs37 recipesMince MeatMince Meat37 recipes