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Sheeps Head Broth

A broth made from a sheep's head, simmered with onions, parsley, turnip, carrot, and optional rice, tongues, and brains.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Sheeps Head Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head

  1. Soak the sheep's head in water and salt for 1 hour, then cleanse it well.

  2. Split the head in two, remove the eyes, and carefully lift out the brains and tongue.

  3. Wash the head again and place it in a saucepan with plenty of water, adding salt and pepper.

Make the broth

  1. One hour before serving, add the sliced onions, parsley, turnip, and carrot.

  2. Boil the broth until just enough liquid remains.

Finish and serve

  1. Cut small pieces of the cheek and add them to the soup along with a little cooked rice.

  2. If desired, cook the tongues and brains in the same water and add them to the soup.

  3. Alternatively, cook the tongues and brains separately and add them to the soup.

  4. Pour the remaining broth over the head after reserving enough for the next meal's soup.

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 + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  4. Parsley + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Sheep's head
Gives the broth its main body, flavour and gelatin from the bones and cheek meat.
Onions
Add sweetness and savoury aroma to the broth as they simmer.
Turnip
Adds mild sweetness and earthy depth to the broth.
Carrot
Adds gentle sweetness and colour to the broth.
Parsley
Adds fresh, herbal aroma to the broth.

The step that matters

Soak and cleanse the head. Soaking in salted water draws out blood and impurities, so the broth stays clean-tasting and clear rather than dull or bitter.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, parsley, turnip, carrot, rice):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, parsley, turnip, carrot, rice. 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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