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Hashed Pig’s Head

A dish of boiled pig's head and calf's feet, seasoned with mace, cloves, cayenne, sage, and walnut ketchup, served with sliced hard-boiled eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

Hashed Pig’s Head

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Place the pig's head, feet, and haslet in a saucepan with enough water to cover.

  2. Boil until tender.

  3. Remove the pig's head, feet, and haslet.

  4. Cut into small pieces.

  5. Discard the bones.

  6. Return the meat to the saucepan.

Make the hash

  1. Add chopped onions, mace, cloves, cayenne, sage, salt, and pepper.

  2. Cook over heat until fully done.

  3. Thicken with a small amount of flour.

  4. Stir in the sliced hard-boiled eggs and walnut ketchup.

Serve

  1. Turn the mixture out onto a dish.

  2. Serve.

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. Sage + walnuttop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together179 recipes

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

  3. Clove + sagetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together731 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Pig's head
Provides the main meat and gelatinous body of the hash once boiled until tender.
Calf's feet
Release gelatin during long boiling, giving the hash a rich, body-thickened texture.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid so the hash holds together rather than running loose.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add richness and a soft, crumbly texture to the mixed hash.
Walnut ketchup
Adds dark, savoury, tangy flavour that deepens the seasoning of the hash.

The step that matters

Thicken with a small amount of flour. Flour must be stirred in evenly and cooked through, or it forms lumps and leaves a raw, pasty taste. A small amount is enough, since the gelatin from the feet already helps the mixture set.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, clove, pepper, sage, egg, walnut, ketchup):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, clove, pepper, sage, egg, walnut, ketchup. 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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