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Mock Brawn

A meat loaf made from tripe, gristle, tongues, bacon, pork, and spices, boiled and pressed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,395 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Mock Brawn

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cleanse the tripe with salt and wash it in water.

  2. Cut the gristle, tongues, bacon, and pork into square pieces.

  3. Sprinkle the pieces with ¼ ounce of saltpetre and let sit for 1–2 hours.

  4. Season with ¼ pound of salt, 2 ounces of black pepper, and 1 ounce of allspice.

Stuff and boil

  1. Stuff the mixture into the tripe and roll it tightly in a cloth, binding it with tape.

  2. Boil for 4 hours without removing the cloth.

Press and store

  1. After boiling, tighten the tape and hang it until cold with a large weight attached.

  2. Press it in a round mold for a night or more.

  3. Remove the cloth and store in a pickle if desired.

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 + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Meat + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,208 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

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

  4. Pork + allspicetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,194 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  5. Meat + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,777 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Tripe
Forms the outer casing that holds the filling together during boiling and pressing.
Pork cheek and bacon
Adds fat and richness that keep the set meat moist as it cools.
Gristle and neat's feet
Releases gelatin during boiling, helping the mass bind and set when cold.
Saltpetre
Cures the meat, giving it a pink colour and a firm texture.
Black pepper and allspice
Provide warm, aromatic seasoning that flavours the meat throughout.

The step that matters

Pressing while cold. Hanging with a weight and pressing in a mold while the meat cools lets the gelatin set and packs the pieces into a firm, sliceable block. Pressing too little leaves it crumbly.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, pork, 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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