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Head Cheese

Head cheese is a cold meat terrine made from boiled pig head, ears, and tongue, seasoned with salt, pepper, sage, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and sage 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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the head, ears, and tongue in salted water until tender.

  2. Remove the bones and chop the meat finely.

Season and set

  1. Season with salt, pepper, sage, and a little vinegar.

  2. Mix everything together thoroughly and pack it into a bowl.

  3. Press down with a wet plate on top and let it sit for a day.

Serve

  1. Serve cold with vinegar and mustard, or warm in a frying pan with butter.

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. Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  3. Sage + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,312 recipes

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

  4. Sage + vinegartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together618 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Head of a pig
Provides the bulk of the meat and gelatinous connective tissue that binds the chopped pieces when cooled.
Ears of a pig
Adds cartilage and collagen, which release gelatin during boiling to help the mixture set firm.
Tongue of a pig
Contributes rich, tender meat and fat that give the set terrine its texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the richness of the meat and fat.

The step that matters

Press down with a wet plate and let it sit for a day. Cooling under weight lets the gelatin from the boiled bones, ears and skin set the chopped meat into a firm, sliceable block. Pressing too little leaves it crumbly.

Swap the sage

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Sagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, vinegar, butter. 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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