Sheep's Head
INGREDIENTS. - 1 sheep's head, sufficient water to cover it, 3 carrots, 3 turnips, 2 or 3 parsnips, 3 onions, a small bunch of parsley, 1½ teaspoonful of pepper, 3 teaspoonfuls of salt, 1/4 lb. of Scotch oatmeal. AVERAGE COST, 1s. 4d.
Clean the head well, and let it soak in warm water for 2 hours, to get rid of the blood; put it into a saucepan, with sufficient cold water to cover it, and when it boils, add the vegetables, peeled and sliced, and the remaining ingredients; before adding the oatmeal, mix it to a smooth batter with a little of the liquor. Keep stirring till it boils up; then shut the saucepan closely, and let it stew gently for 1½ or 2 hours. It may be thickened with rice or barley, but oatmeal is preferable.
TIME.-1 to 2 hours.
SEASONABLE at any time.
Sheep's Head Soup. INGREDIENTS for soup for 6 persons.-1 sheep's head, 1 onion, 1 leek, 1 bunch of sweet herbs, pepper, salt and water. AVERAGE COST, 1s. 2d.
Wash and clean the head, and soak it for 2 hours, then put it in a deep saucepan, SHORTBREAD, SCOTCH. with just enough water to cover it. When the head is thoroughly heated, add 2 quarts of water and boil for 2 hours, after which take out the head and remove the meat from the bones. Put back the bones into the saucepan with the herbs, the onion and leek, cut in small pieces, and seasoning, and simmer another hour. Chop the meat into small pieces, and add it to the soup 10 minutes before serving.
TIME.-3 hours.
SEASONABLE in winter.
Two related Scottish preparations run together here: a thick head broth bound with oatmeal, and a clearer soup made in two stages. Both stand or fall on the butchery, which Mrs Beeton assumes has already been done for you.
- Sourcing the headA sheep's head is a special order from a halal or traditional butcher, and it must come split and cleaned, with brain, eyes and glands removed. In the UK and EU the skull and brain of sheep over twelve months are classed as specified risk material and cannot legally be sold for food; buy only a head a butcher has prepared for sale, never one dressed at home.
- Singeing and soakingVictorian heads arrived with wool stubble still on them and were singed over a flame, then scrubbed. A modern butchered head still benefits from a hard scrub and the full two-hour soak in warm water called for, changing the water once, which draws out blood and keeps the broth from turning grey.
- Scotch oatmealThis means pinhead or medium-cut oatmeal, not rolled oats, which would dissolve into paste. Quarter of a pound is about 115 g.
- Slaking the oatmealThe hinge of the first recipe. Mix the oatmeal to a smooth batter with a little of the hot liquor before it goes in, and stir without stopping until the pot returns to the boil, or it sets into lumps that will not break up afterwards.
- The stated time is shortOne and a half to two hours will not bring the cheek and tongue meat off the bone. Three to four hours at a bare simmer is realistic; the second recipe's total of three hours is nearer the mark. Test by whether the meat pulls away cleanly.
- Skim, and skim againA head throws a great deal of fat and scum. Skim in the first twenty minutes, and if you can, chill the finished broth overnight and lift the fat cap before reheating.
- VegetablesThree carrots, three turnips, two or three parsnips and three onions in one pot is a large quantity by modern taste and will sweeten the broth considerably. Halving the root vegetables gives a savourier result; in Scottish usage 'turnip' often means swede.
- YieldThe first version, thickened with oatmeal, carries no stated yield; as a meal in itself it will serve about four to six. The second is given as soup for 6 persons.
Sheep's head broth belongs to the thrift end of Scottish cookery, and the cost given here -- 1s. 4d. and 1s. 2d. -- puts it at the cheap end of the book's soups. Singed sheep's heads were a recognised trade in Edinburgh and Glasgow, where the wool was burned off before the heads reached the butcher's block; an old name for the resulting broth is powsowdie. Mrs Beeton includes it, as she includes calf's head and ox cheek, because a mid-Victorian household manual was expected to account for every part of the animal. The dish has largely disappeared from British kitchens since BSE-era restrictions on sheep skulls, though closely related head preparations remain common in Norwegian, North African and Mexican cooking.