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Head Cheese

Head cheese is a cold meat terrine made from boiled head, tongue, and feet seasoned with herbs and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,485 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Head Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the head and remove the eyes.

  2. Split the head with a sharp knife and remove the ears and brains.

  3. Soak the head, tongue, and feet in cold water for 2 hours.

Season and cook

  1. Sprinkle with sage, thyme, bay leaves, salt, pepper, and lemon juice. Cover and let sit for 24 hours.

  2. Boil the mixture in just enough water to cover.

  3. Once cooked, separate the meat from the bones.

Press and serve

  1. Pack the meat in a bread pan, cover with a weight, and press overnight.

  2. Serve with mustard and vinegar.

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. Sage + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,485 recipes

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

  2. Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 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

Head of meat
Forms the bulk of the set terrine, providing the body of the dish.
Tongue
Adds rich, gelatin-bearing meat that helps the chilled head cheese hold together.
Feet
Release collagen as they cook, which gels into gelatin that sets the head cheese.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich meat and balances its flavour.

The step that matters

Boil in just enough water to cover. Using only enough water keeps the broth concentrated, so the collagen from the bones and feet dissolves into a liquid that will set firmly when chilled.

“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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