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Collared Pig’s Head

A pig's head seasoned with salt and pepper, boiled, and optionally pickled with ox foot or pork.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,814 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Collared Pig’s Head

Ingredients

Directions

Cure

  1. Salt the pig's head for a week.

Prepare and wrap

  1. Boil the head for 1 hour.

  2. Bone the head and cut it in half.

  3. Lay the snout end of one half towards the neck end of the other.

  4. Season well with pepper and place the ears inside.

  5. Add boiled flesh of an ox foot or fresh lean pork if desired.

  6. Wrap tightly in a cloth and tie with tape.

Cook and set

  1. Boil in seasoned water until perfectly tender.

  2. When cold, unbind and place under a weight.

  3. If storing, place in a pickle until needed.

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. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Pepper + porktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

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

  3. Pork + vinegartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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 main body of meat and gelatinous connective tissue that sets the collar when cooled.
Coarse sea salt
Cures the meat over a week, drawing out moisture and seasoning it through.
Pepper
Adds sharp, aromatic seasoning to the meat before wrapping.
Pig's ears
Add cartilage and skin that become gelatinous and give the collar body and texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity to the pickle used for storage, helping preserve the meat and sharpen its flavour.

The step that matters

Wrap tightly in a cloth and tie with tape. Firm, even wrapping keeps the layered meat compact while it cooks, so the collar holds a neat shape when cold. Loose wrapping lets the pieces separate.

“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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