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Pork Cheese

A herb‑seasoned pork roast baked until moist and served cold.

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

  1. Cut the cold roast pork into small pieces.

  2. Add 1 lb of fat for each pound of lean.

  3. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

  4. In a mortar, pound together the minced parsley, sage, savory herbs, mace, nutmeg, and lemon peel.

  5. Mix the herb mixture thoroughly with the meat.

Bake and set

  1. Place the mixture into a mold.

  2. Pour enough strong stock over it to make it very moist.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1.5 hours.

  4. Let it cool in the mold.

Serve

  1. Serve cold.

  2. Cut into thin slices.

  3. 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

Roast pork
Forms the body of the dish, giving it its meaty texture once sliced.
Fat
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the lean meat tender during baking.
Strong stock
Adds moisture and savory depth, helping the mixture stay juicy in the oven.
Lemon peel
Adds bright aromatic flavor that balances the richness of the meat and fat.

The step that matters

Pouring in the stock. Enough liquid must be added so the mixture stays very moist during baking. Lean meat dries out quickly in the oven, and the stock helps keep it tender and juicy.

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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