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Head Cheese

A meat jelly made by boiling pig's head, corned beef, and onions, then seasoning and setting in a cloth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Head Cheese

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the meat

  1. Boil the pig's head, corned beef, and onions until the meat falls from the bones.

  2. Remove from heat and let cool enough to handle.

Season and set

  1. Pick out all the bones and add powdered sage, coarse sea salt, and pepper. Mix well and place in a cloth sack or mold.

  2. Press with a weight until cold.

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 + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  2. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Onion + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Pig's head
Supplies the meat and gelatin-rich connective tissue that bind the head cheese as it cools.
Corned beef
Adds meat and savory, salty flavor to the mixture.
Onions
Add aromatic sweetness and flavor to the cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Press with a weight until cold. Pressing while the mixture cools compacts the meat and lets the gelatin from the boiled connective tissue set, so the head cheese holds its shape when sliced.

Swap the sage

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Sagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, onion, 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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