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To Make Head Cheese

Head cheese is a cold meat terrine made from pork faces, hog rinds, and spices, cooked slowly and set in a casing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Coriander and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 393 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

To Make Head Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 170°F (77°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Salt the pork faces 4 days before cooking.

  2. Cook the pork faces until the meat can be removed from the bones.

  3. Cut the meat into 2 to 3-inch pieces by hand.

Stuff and cook

  1. Mix the meat with cooked hog rinds and spices.

  2. Stuff the mixture into stomachs or beef bungs.

  3. Cook at 170°F (77°C) for 1.5 hours.

  4. After cooking, place in cold water for 15 minutes.

  5. Lay on a bench until the next day.

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. Coriander + allspicetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together393 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Pepper + coriandertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,949 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Pork + allspicetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,194 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

What each ingredient does

Pork faces
Provide the meat and gelatinous connective tissue that binds the head cheese as it sets.
Cooked hog rinds
Add gelatin-rich collagen that helps the mixture set firmly when chilled.
Black pepper
Adds sharp, pungent aroma that seasons the meat throughout.
Coriander
Adds citrusy, aromatic flavour that balances the richness of the pork.
Allspice
Adds warm, clove-like aroma that rounds out the spiced flavour.

The step that matters

Cook at 170°F (77°C) for 1.5 hours. Holding the mixture at a gentle temperature cooks the meat through without toughening it or breaking the gelatin. Excess heat can dry the meat and prevent a firm, sliceable set.

Swap the coriander

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

  1. Clovefits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Corianderthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, pepper, allspice. 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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