Name: Pig Jowl with Spinach
Ingredients: 2 gallons boiling water

Pig Jowl with Spinach

Ingredients

2 gallons boiling water

Directions

Cook the jowl

Put half a smoked pig jowl in 2 gallons boiling water, and boil for 2 hours.
Take out, peel off the skin, and trim neatly.

Serve

Have ready some freshly sliced spinach, place it on a hot dish, and arrange the jowl over it.

By Martin, Maria Ewing, Mrs., [from old catalog] comp. 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. See the original page.

Explore the science

What each ingredient does

Smoked pig jowl (in the method): Provides the main meat, and its fat renders during boiling to flavour and soften the meat.
Spinach (in the method): Forms the bed under the jowl, adding a fresh, green, slightly bitter contrast to the rich meat.

“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.