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Hogs Head Cheese with Teuffles

A terrine made from boiled hog's head, feet, truffles, and seasonings, chilled and molded.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Hogs Head Cheese with Teuffles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the hog's head and remove the brains.

Cook

  1. Boil the head, brains, and feet with garlic, onion, parsley, sage, thyme, pepper, and truffles for about 4 hours.

Finish and set

  1. Remove the bones and chop the mixture finely.

  2. Stir in the vinegar until cold.

  3. Set the mixture in molds.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Sage + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,445 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Hog's head
Provides the meat and gelatinous connective tissue that sets the head cheese once cooled.
Hog's feet
Their collagen releases gelatin during long simmering, helping the mixture firm up when chilled.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich meat and helps balance its flavor.
Salt
Seasons the meat and draws out flavor throughout the long boil.

The step that matters

Stir in the vinegar until cold. Vinegar added to a mixture that is still hot can dull the flavor and interfere with gel formation, so letting the mixture cool first helps it set firmly and taste balanced.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sage, truffle, pepper, garlic, thyme, vinegar, parsley):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sage, truffle, pepper, garlic, thyme, vinegar, parsley. 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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