Skip to main content
Main

Scrapple

Scrapple is a savory loaf made from pig's head meat, cornmeal, and seasonings, boiled, cooled, sliced, and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Scrapple

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Clean the pig's head.

  2. Place the pig's head in a stewpan with hot water.

  3. Simmer for three hours.

  4. Cool the pot.

  5. Remove the bones.

  6. Chop the meat finely.

Make the mush

  1. Add the chopped meat to the cooking liquid with the seasonings.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Sprinkle in the cornmeal while stirring continuously.

  4. Cook for two hours. Stir frequently.

  5. Rinse a deep bread pan with cold water.

  6. Pour the hot mixture into the rinsed pan.

  7. Set aside in a cool place until completely cold.

Fry and serve

  1. Cut the cooled mixture into slices about ½ inch thick.

  2. Roll the slices in flour or breading.

  3. Fry the slices until brown.

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. Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Pig's head
Provides the meat and gelatin that bind the loaf as it cools and sets.
Cornmeal
Thickens the cooking liquid so the mixture sets firm enough to slice.
Water
Cooks the meat and forms the liquid that the cornmeal thickens.

The step that matters

Sprinkle in the cornmeal while stirring continuously. Cornmeal added to boiling liquid without constant stirring clumps and scorches on the bottom, and the lumps prevent a smooth, evenly set mixture.

“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.

More scrapple recipes

Philadelphia 4 See all 32 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes