Skip to main content
Main

Cheese Souse

A savory meat jelly made from boiled head and jowl, seasoned with spices and set in a mold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Cheese Souse

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the head and jowl with salt, pepper, and onion until tender.

  2. Cut the meat into thin slices.

  3. Skin and strain the cooking liquid.

  4. Season the liquid with allspice, cloves, thyme, and red pepper.

  5. Return the meat to the pot with the seasoned liquid.

  6. Boil down until it thickens to a jelly.

  7. Pour into a mold and let set.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,077 recipes

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

  3. Clove + thymetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Meat head and jowl
Provides the meat and natural gelatin that sets the liquid into a jelly.
Cooking liquid (in the method)
Carries the seasonings and, once reduced, forms the jelly that holds the meat together.

The step that matters

Boil down until it thickens to a jelly. The liquid must reduce enough for its gelatin to concentrate; too little reduction leaves it runny and it will not set firmly when cooled in the mold.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, pepper, allspice, clove, thyme):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, pepper, allspice, clove, thyme. 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.

More meat aspic recipes

Savory 3 See all 26 →

You might also like

Meat CroquettesMeat Croquettes52 recipesMeatballsMeatballs37 recipesMince MeatMince Meat37 recipesMeat CakesMeat Cakes35 recipes