Why it works: Buckwheat and flour work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 660 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Philadelphia Scrapple
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the pork
Remove the eyes, brains, snout, and other inedible parts from the pork heads.
Place the heads in a large pot with 20 gallons of water and cook until thoroughly done.
Remove the heads, separate the bones, and chop the meat finely.
Measure 15 gallons of the cooking liquid; adjust with hot water if necessary.
Make the mush
Combine the cooking liquid and chopped meat in a kettle.
Add the white pepper, sweet marjoram, and fine salt to the mixture.
Bring the mixture to a boil.
In a separate bowl, mix the Indian meal and buckwheat flour dry.
Gradually add the meal and flour to the boiling mixture.
Stir briskly to prevent burning.
Cook until well done.
Set, slice and fry
Pour the mixture into greased pans to cool.
Once cooled, cut the scrapple into slices.
Fry the slices like sausage until hot.
Serve hot.
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.
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Buckwheat + flourtop 4% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together660 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Marjoram + buckwheattop 9% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together8 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
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Marjoram + flourtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,265 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Pork + marjoramtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together883 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).
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Pork + buckwheattop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together48 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Pork heads
- Provide the meat and gelatin-rich liquid that bind and flavor the scrapple.
- Indian meal
- Cornmeal thickens the cooking liquid into a mush that sets firm when cooled.
- Buckwheat flour
- Adds body and a nutty flavor to the mush, helping it hold its shape when sliced.
- White pepper
- Adds mild, sharp warmth that seasons the meat and mush.
- Sweet marjoram
- Contributes a floral, savory aroma to the pork mixture.
The step that matters
Gradually add the meal and flour to the boiling mixture. Adding dry meal all at once forms lumps, and the thick starchy mush scorches easily on the bottom of the pot, so it must be added slowly while stirring briskly.
Swap the white pepper
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, marjoram, buckwheat, flour):
- Thymefits better
- Sagefits better
- Nutmegfits better
- White pepperthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against pork, marjoram, buckwheat, flour. 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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