Name: Head Cheese
Ingredients: 2 pig heads; sage; pepper; coarse sea salt; corned beef pickle

Why it works: Sage and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Head Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Split the heads, bone them, singe, scrape, and thoroughly cleanse them.
Soak the heads in corned beef pickle for about 2 days.
Boil the heads for 3 to 4 hours.
Cut up the meat and strain the cooking liquid through a fine strainer.
Return the cut meat and liquid to the boiler and simmer for 2 more hours.

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.

Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,388 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Pepper + beeftop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,971 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Sage + beeftop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together847 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).