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Brawn

A minced pig's head and sausage mixture formed into a loaf, seasoned with pepper, salt, and gherkins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Brawn

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the head

  1. Boil the pig's head for 1.5 hours in water with the onion, carrot, celery, and peppercorns, skimming the water while it boils.

  2. When the bones come out easily, remove the head.

  3. Take out the bones and mince the meat finely.

Prepare the filling

  1. Boil the sausages for 15 minutes, remove the skins, and chop the sausage meat.

  2. Mix the sausage meat with the minced meat, chopped gherkins, pepper, and salt.

Set and turn out

  1. Lightly rub a mold with a cut clove of garlic and press the mixture into it.

  2. Place a plate or dish on top and weigh it down.

  3. Turn out when cold.

  4. If hard to turn out, dip the mold in hot water for a few seconds.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Clove + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 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

Pig's head
Provides the gelatine-rich meat and bones that set the brawn as it cools.
Sausages
Add savoury flavour and a firmer, meatier texture to the mixed filling.
Gherkins
Add acidity and a sharp contrast that cuts through the rich meat.

The step that matters

Weighing down the mold while it cools. Pressing the mixture as it cools helps the gelatine from the head and bones bind the pieces into a firm, sliceable set. Without pressure the brawn can crumble when turned out.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, carrot, celery, pepper, garlic):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Cuminfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, carrot, celery, pepper, garlic. 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 brawn recipes

Mock 21Tonbridge 19Sauce 4Ox Head 4Pickle 3Calf's Head 3 See all 9 →

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