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Calf’s Head Hashed, or Ragout

A hash of calf's head, eggs, bread, herbs, and gravy, served with brains and tongue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley 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 Hashed, or Ragout

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head

  1. Wash the calf's head and boil it until tender, leaving the skin on.

  2. Remove the bones from half of the head and score it superficially.

  3. Beat the egg.

  4. Brush the beaten egg over the head.

  5. Sprinkle the head with grated bread, lemon peel, thyme, and parsley.

  6. Cover the head with bread crumbs.

  7. Place the head in a Dutch oven to brown.

Make the hash

  1. Cut the other half of the head into slices.

  2. Place the sliced head in a stew pan with gravy or turtle sauce.

  3. Add forcemeat balls, egg balls, white wine, and ketchup.

  4. Warm the mixture together and skim off the fat.

Prepare the tongue and brains

  1. Peel the tongue.

  2. Serve the tongue with the brains as a side dish.

  3. Mix the brains with flour, eggs, lemon peel, thyme, parsley, sage, pepper, salt, and nutmeg.

  4. Fry the mixture in small cakes until light brown.

Serve

  1. Serve the hash with the browned half-head in the middle and garnish with crispy or curled rash.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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, providing the body and richness of the hash.
Egg
Binds the bread coating and the brain cakes so they hold together.
Grated bread
Adds crumb texture to the coating and helps it brown in the oven.
Gravy or turtle sauce
Supplies moisture and savory body that coats the sliced head.
Flour
Helps bind the brain mixture and gives the cakes structure for frying.
White wine
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce and balances the fat.

The step that matters

Skim off the fat. Rich meat and gravy release fat as they warm; leaving it in makes the hash greasy and heavy. Skimming while warming keeps the sauce clean and balanced.

Swap the thyme

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, bread, lemon, parsley, sauce, white wine, pepper):

  1. Tarragonfits about as well
  2. Marjoramfits about as well
  3. Thymethe original
  4. Capersfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, bread, lemon, parsley, sauce, white wine, pepper. 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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