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To Make Souse

Souse is a pickled meat dish made from various parts of the animal, simmered, seasoned, and stored in vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

To Make Souse

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Soak the meat pieces in cold water for 12 hours, changing the water frequently.

  2. Wash the pieces, wipe off the blood, and soak them again in fresh water until the blood is drawn out.

  3. Scrape each piece and clean each piece thoroughly.

Cook the meat

  1. Mix meal with water and add salt.

  2. Boil the meat gently until tender.

  3. Boil feet in one pot, ears and nose in another, and heads in a third until bones can be removed.

  4. Let the meat cool.

Shape and pickle

  1. Season the insides with pepper, salt, and nutmeg.

  2. Roll the meat tightly and sew in cloth.

  3. Mix more meal with cold water, add salt, and add ¼ cup vinegar.

  4. Cover the souse with this mixture in pots.

  5. Renew the covering mixture every 2-3 weeks.

  6. Ensure the souse is cold before placing it in the liquor.

  7. Use pale vinegar to keep it light in color.

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 + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Meat + nutmegtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,656 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Meat + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,777 recipes

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

  5. Nutmeg + vinegartop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,864 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Meal
Forms the thickened covering mixture that protects and holds the pickled meat.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that preserves the meat and gives the souse its sharp, tangy flavour.
Nutmeg
Adds warm aroma to the seasoned interior of the meat.

The step that matters

Ensure the souse is cold before placing it in the liquor. Placing warm meat into the pickling liquid can keep it warm for longer and encourage spoilage, and it can also disturb the liquid's set. Cooling first keeps the pickle stable and safe.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, pepper, vinegar. 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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