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To Hash Calf’s Head Brown

A hash made from half-boiled calf's head, butter, flour, onions, gravy, truffles, morels, and seasonings, finished with parsley, tarragon, lemon, ketchup, and wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,979 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

To Hash Calf’s Head Brown

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a pan, brown the butter, flour, and sliced onions.

  2. Cut the meat from the half-boiled calf's head into slices, half an inch thick and two to three inches long.

Simmer

  1. Add the meat slices, gravy, truffles, and morels to the pan.

  2. Bring to a boil, skim well, and then simmer on moderate heat until very tender.

  3. Season with pepper, salt, and cayenne.

  4. Ten minutes before serving, add chopped parsley, tarragon, and marjoram.

Finish and serve

  1. Just before serving, squeeze in the lemon juice, add ketchup, and white wine if desired.

  2. Garnish with forcemeat balls and bits of bacon.

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 + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Tarragon + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together148 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Parsley + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  5. Pepper + marjoramtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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 meat that becomes tender during long, gentle simmering.
Butter
Carries flavour and, with flour, forms the base for thickening the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce when browned with butter and onions.
Onions
Browning them adds savoury depth and sweetness to the sauce.
Gravy
Forms the liquid base of the hash, adding body and savoury flavour.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, savoury sauce.

The step that matters

Simmer on moderate heat until very tender. The boil must be skimmed and the heat kept moderate so the meat cooks gently. A hard boil toughens the proteins and makes the sauce cloudy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, truffle, pepper, parsley, tarragon, marjoram):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, truffle, pepper, parsley, tarragon, marjoram. 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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