Calf's Head Recipes

[HUGH]

Now there is a revival of typical dishes, who'd like to come to dinner with me?

Calf's Head

Historic Offal Dish

A much prized dish from earliest times to the beginning of the 20th Century, almost always served whole, boiled and trimmed, as a centrepiece to be carved at table.

Original Recipe from Robert May 1660.

To roast a Calves head:

Take a calves head, cleave it and take out the brains, skins, and blood about it, then steep them and the head in fair warm water the space of four or five hours, shift them three or four times and cleanse the head; then boil the brains, & make a pudding with some grated bread, brains, some beef-suet minced small, with some minced veal & sage; season the pudding with some cloves, mace, salt, ginger, sugar, five yolks of eggs, & saffron; fill the head with this pudding, then close it up and bind it fast with some packthread, spit it, and bind on the caul round the head with some of the pudding round about it, rost it & save the gravy, blow off the fat, and put to the gravy; for the sauce a little white-wine, a slic't nutmeg & a piece of sweet butter, the juyce of an orange, salt, and sugar. Then bread up the head with some grated bread; beaten cinamon, minced lemon peel, and a little salt.


Alternatively Mrs.B has:

"Scrape off the hair ... take the eyes out, cut off the ears, and remove the brain. Simmer it very gently from 2½ to 3 hours, and boil the brains for ¼ hour. ... Take up the head, cut out the tongue, skin it, put it on a small dish with the brains round it; sprinkle over the head a few bread crumbs mixed with a little minced parsley; brown these before the fire, and serve with a tureen of parsley and butter, and either boiled bacon, ham, or pickled pork as an accompaniment."
"You must half-boyl a fair Calves-head, then take out all the Bones on both sides, and season it with the afore-said seasoning, and lard it with Bacon, and a little Limon-peel: then having a Coffin large enough, not very high, nor very thick, but make it four-square, lay on some sheets of Lard on the top, and butter; when it is bak'd, and cold, fill it with Clarified Butter."


For many years after the restoration of Charles II, even into the beginning of the 19th Century, those who still held allegiance to puritan republicanism formed 'Calf's Head Clubs', where on the anniversary of Charles I's beheading, 30th January, they would feast on calves' head and toast the glorious memory of Oliver Cromwell.

[NA4BH]

I'm thinking that I'm busy that night. Darn it.

[WØTKX]

Cheek meat is da bomb. Eyeballs ain't bad either, cook 'em up after removing.

[n2ize]

When I was a kid I remember tasting fried calves brain that a European neighbor prepared. I remember it being quite taste once I got over the initial shock of what I was eating. I have also eaten "head cheese" which is also prepared from parts of the head and I liked it. In reality if you are going to eat animals it is not that much different from eating cuts of meat from other parts of the body. Also in old days these recipes came about so as not to waste any part of the animal...

Think about sausage. It is often made in casings which are the animals intestines. Matter of fact most of the good quality sausage is made using natural casings as opposed to synthetic casing. I remember when my grandma weas visiting and she made a batch of suasage I had to go toi the butcher shop to pick up sausage casing. What I was basically coming home with was a bag full of animal intestines. :)

Fiddle strings were and still are made from animal intestines, although nowadays they are mostly made of steel or synthetic core material which is stronger and lasts longer. Nonetheless, some musicians prefer pure gut strings for some types of music... and they are quite expensive.

[NQ6U]

But...is it a rolly-polly calve's head?

[WØTKX]

No, that is reserved for fish heads.
Eat them up YUM!

[kb2vxa]

I was waiting for someone to remember Barnes and Barnes. That stuff isn't called offal for nothing, awful with a Jersey accent.

[HUGH]

Fiddle strings were and still are made from animal intestines, although nowadays they are mostly made of steel or synthetic core material which is stronger and lasts longer. Nonetheless, some musicians prefer pure gut strings for some types of music... and they are quite expensive.

Yes, on my last visit to a slaughter plant, there was an old boy in the basement cheerily twisting sheep's intestines together as they were thrown down a chute at him. He was enjoying his work with a lunatic grin on his face.

Now I remember it, when I completely rebuilt my long-case (grandfather) clock, I bought gut lines for it and they look as good as new over 15 years.

(Our guide at the slaughter place also informed us that in Germany there was still a preference to using gut as condoms).

[n2ize]

Fiddle strings were and still are made from animal intestines, although nowadays they are mostly made of steel or synthetic core material which is stronger and lasts longer. Nonetheless, some musicians prefer pure gut strings for some types of music... and they are quite expensive.

Yes, on my last visit to a slaughter plant, there was an old boy in the basement cheerily twisting sheep's intestines together as they were thrown down a chute at him. He was enjoying his work with a lunatic grin on his face.

Now I remember it, when I completely rebuilt my long-case (grandfather) clock, I bought gut lines for it and they look as good as new over 15 years.

(Our guide at the slaughter place also informed us that in Germany there was still a preference to using gut as condoms).

Well, think of it like this. If they are going to slaughter an animal they might as well make use of as many parts of it as possible,m from the hides to the top choice meat cuts. As far as joining you for the calves head dinner, yes, I would have a go at it. Unless I go vegan meat is meat.

[kb2vxa]

Trojan still sells Naturalamb condoms and there are probably others for those allergic to latex.