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Mock Brawn

A preserved pork dish made by simmering pork belly and cow heels, then pickling in vinegar, salt, sugar, and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Mock Brawn

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Salt the belly part of the pork as in the previous recipe.

  2. Put the pork and cow heels in cold water and simmer for 1 hour.

  3. Remove the heels, bone them, and season with Cayenne and mace.

Roll and cook

  1. Roll the pork and heels tightly in a linen cloth and bind with tape.

  2. Simmer for 2 hours, then leave in the cloth until cold.

Pickle and serve

  1. Immerse in a pickle of equal parts vinegar and water, with salt, sugar, and cloves for 1-2 days.

  2. Remove, dry, and serve cold for lunch or breakfast.

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 + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

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

  4. Pork + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,515 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Belly part of pork
Provides the meat that forms the body of the brawn once cooked and set.
Cow heels
Their collagen-rich connective tissue gives the set, jelly-like texture when cooked and cooled.
Vinegar
Acidity in the pickle flavours the meat and helps preserve it during the soaking period.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar pickle with a touch of sweetness.

The step that matters

Rolling and binding the pork and heels tightly in the cloth. Tight rolling presses the meat and heels together so they set into one firm, sliceable loaf as they cool. Loose rolling lets the pieces separate.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, pepper, vinegar, sugar, clove. 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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