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Boiled Calf Head

A boiled calf head served with a butter‑parsley‑lemon brain mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Boiled Calf Head

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the calf's head and remove the brains.

  2. Soak the head and brains in warm water for about an hour.

  3. Place the head in a stewpan and cover with cold water.

Boil

  1. Bring to a boil, add salt, and remove any scum that rises.

  2. Boil until the head is tender.

  3. Boil the brains separately, chop them, and mix with melted butter, parsley, pepper, salt, and lemon juice.

Serve

  1. Remove the head, skin the tongue, and place it on a dish with the chopped brains around it.

  2. Garnish with parsley and butter, and serve the remaining mixture in a tureen.

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

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

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  4. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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 body of the dish, becoming tender and rich through long simmering.
Melted butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the chopped brains a smooth, moist texture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich flavor of the brains and butter.
Brains (in the method)
Set into a soft, rich mixture when chopped and combined with butter.

The step that matters

Remove any scum that rises. Scum forming on the surface of a boiling liquid contains impurities and proteins that can cloud the broth and taste bitter if left to mix back in.

“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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