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Modern Cookery

A soup made from calf's head, stock, and a rice flour batter, seasoned with cayenne, mace, mushroom ketchup, and sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,232 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Modern Cookery

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head

  1. Remove the bone from the calf's head and wash it.

  2. Roll and bind the head with tape or twine.

  3. Place the head in a saucepan with the bones and tongue.

  4. Cover with beef stock and stew for 1.5 hours.

  5. Remove the head and let it cool to prevent drying.

  6. Strain the stock and reserve the fat.

  7. Cut the head into small thick slices or 1-inch squares.

Make the soup

  1. Add the skin and tongue to the soup.

  2. If the skin is not tender, simmer it gently until tender.

  3. Mix the rice flour with cayenne, mace, and mushroom ketchup.

  4. Add enough cold broth or water to make a batter.

  5. Boil the mixture, remove any scum, and add sherry.

  6. Season with salt to taste.

  7. Serve the soup with forcemeat balls or add lemon juice for extra flavor.

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. Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  2. Mushroom + sherrytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,176 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol (smoky, clove).

  3. Rice + mushroomtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,515 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  4. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  5. Beef + ricetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,265 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice flour
Thickens the soup into a body-rich texture when mixed into a batter and boiled.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds savoury depth and umami to the soup.
Sherry
Adds aromatic sweetness and acidity to the finished soup.
Calf's head
Provides gelatinous body and richness to the stock as it stews.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture and remove the scum. Rice flour thickens only once it is fully boiled, so the soup must reach a boil to set. Skimming the scum that rises during boiling keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, rice, flour, pepper, mushroom, ketchup, sherry):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, rice, flour, pepper, mushroom, ketchup, sherry. 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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