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Calves- Ears Stuffed

A dish of calf ears filled with liver, bacon, ham, herbs, and egg, then breaded and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Ham and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,536 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Calves- Ears Stuffed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ears

  1. Scald and clean the calf's ears, cutting them close to the head.

  2. Boil the ears until tender, then blanch them in cold water.

  3. Cut the gristle next to the head smooth so the ears stand upright.

Stuff and fry

  1. Prepare the stuffing by mixing liver, bacon, ham, soaked bread, herbs, egg, salt, and mace.

  2. Fill the ears with the stuffing, then rub the outside with oil and coat in bread crumbs.

  3. Fry the ears in hot oil until golden brown.

Serve

  1. Serve with brown or white gravy, or tomato sauce.

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. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

  2. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Liver + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together731 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Ham + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

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

  5. Liver + hamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together298 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg
Binds the stuffing so it holds together when filled and fried.
Bread
Soaked in cream or gravy, it keeps the stuffing moist and tender.
Calf's liver
Gives the stuffing its rich, savoury body and flavour.
Fat bacon
Adds fat that keeps the stuffing moist and carries flavour.
Calf's ears
Boiled until tender, they form the crisp-edged shell that holds the stuffing.

The step that matters

Fry the ears in hot oil until golden brown. Breaded surfaces brown through the Maillard reaction, which needs high heat; if the oil is not hot enough the coating soaks up oil and turns greasy before it browns.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, ham, bread, egg):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, ham, bread, egg. 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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