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Head Cheese

Head cheese is a terrine made from pig's head and lean beef, seasoned with salt, pepper, cayenne, and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Head Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head

  1. Cut off the cheeks from the pig's head and salt them, unless the head is small.

  2. Clean the head thoroughly and place it in a pot with enough cold water to cover it and the beef.

  3. Skim the water just before it boils.

Cook and chop

  1. Boil the head for 2 to 3 hours until the meat comes off the bones easily.

  2. Remove the head from the pot, take out the bones, and chop the meat with the beef quickly to prevent fat from settling.

Season and press

  1. Mix in the salt, pepper, cayenne, and cloves thoroughly.

  2. Pack the mixture into delft bowls or molds (not tin) and place a weight on top for several 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.

  1. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  3. Beef + clovetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Pig's head
Collagen from the skin and bones turns to gelatin, helping the mixture set firm.
Lean beef
Adds meat body and flavor, and its low fat keeps the set mixture from turning greasy.
Cloves
Contributes a warm, aromatic spice note.
Cayenne pepper
Adds a sharp heat that cuts through the rich meat.
Pepper
Adds sharp, savory flavor that seasons the meat throughout.

The step that matters

Chop the meat quickly with the beef. Warm fat separates and rises if the meat is handled slowly, so it settles unevenly and leaves greasy layers. Working fast while the meat is still hot keeps the fat dispersed through the mixture.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper):

  1. Rosemaryfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper. 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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