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Head Cheese

Head cheese is a cured meat made from pig head, ears, and tongue, seasoned with salt, pepper, sage, marjoram, cloves, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 507 recipes. Both carry 2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Head Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the head, ears, and tongue in salted water until the meat falls off the bones.

  2. Chop the meat like sausage.

  3. Season the cooking liquid with salt, pepper, sage, sweet marjoram, powdered cloves, and vinegar.

  4. Mix the chopped meat with the seasoned liquid.

  5. While hot, place the mixture in a strong bag and weigh it down with a heavy stone until it cools.

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 + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together507 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Marjoram + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Pepper + marjoramtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  5. Sage + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together731 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Head, ears, and tongue of a pig
Collagen-rich meat and connective tissue that gels as the cooking liquid cools, binding the loaf.
Powdered cloves
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavor to the seasoned liquid.
Strong vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and balances the rich meat.

The step that matters

Pressing while hot. The mixture must be pressed while still hot so the gelatin released from the meat sets into a firm, sliceable block as it cools. If it cools unpressed, the loaf may crumble.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Rosemaryfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, sage, marjoram, vinegar. 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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