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Italian Cheese

A cheese made from pork liver, bacon fat, pork fat, spices, sage, and eggs, baked and served cold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Liver and pork are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,606 recipes. Both carry 1-nonanal, which smells fatty, waxy. The science ↓

Italian Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the mixture

  1. Chop the liver and mix with bacon fat and fresh fat pork.

  2. Season with spices and shredded sage.

  3. Add the raw eggs and mix well.

Bake

  1. Line a stewpan with bacon fat and pour in the mixture.

  2. Cover with more bacon fat and close the lid.

  3. Bake at 300°F (150°C) for three hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Turn out the cheese.

  2. Serve cold.

  3. Glaze.

  4. Decorate with jelly.

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. Liver + porktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,606 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-nonanal (fatty, waxy).

  2. Pork + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,527 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Liver + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together229 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1,8-cineol (eucalyptus, camphor).

  4. Liver + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,177 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Pork + eggtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,387 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

What each ingredient does

Liver of a young porker
Forms the main body of the cheese and gives it its meaty flavour and firm texture.
Bacon fat
Adds richness and moisture, keeping the cheese tender as it bakes.
Fresh fat pork
Adds fat that keeps the mixture moist and prevents it from drying out during baking.
4 raw eggs
Bind the mixture so it sets firm when baked and can be turned out.

Swap the sage

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

  1. Sagethe original
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Nutmegfits less well
  4. Parsleyfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, pork, egg. 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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