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Pork Cheese

Pork cheese is a seasoned pork loaf baked with herbs and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Pork Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the meat

  1. Cut the cold roast pork into small pieces, allowing 1 lb of fat for each pound of lean.

  2. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

  3. In a mortar, pound the minced parsley, sage, savory herbs, mace, nutmeg, and lemon peel. Mix the herb mixture thoroughly with the meat.

Bake and serve

  1. Put the mixture into a mold and pour enough strong stock over it to make it very moist.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1.5 hours and let it cool in the mold.

  3. Serve cold, cut into thin slices, and garnish with parsley or cress.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Parsley + sagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,445 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Sage + lemontop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together887 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  5. Sage + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together642 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold roast pork
Forms the main body of the cheese, giving it its meaty structure and bulk.
Fat
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the lean meat tender once sliced cold.
Strong stock
Adds liquid and savory depth, keeping the mixture moist during baking.
Lemon peel
Adds bright aromatic oils that lift the rich meat and fat.

The step that matters

Pour in enough stock to make the mixture very moist. Lean meat dries out in the oven. Enough liquid keeps the pieces juicy as they bake and helps the set loaf stay tender when sliced cold.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, pepper, parsley, sage, nutmeg, lemon):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Winter savoryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, pepper, parsley, sage, nutmeg, lemon. 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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