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Pork Cheese

A preserved pork head and tongue dish, seasoned, boiled, and set in a tin shaped like cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Pork Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head and tongues

  1. Choose the head of a small pig weighing about 12 pounds.

  2. Sprinkle the head and the tongues of four pigs with coarse sea salt and a very little saltpetre.

  3. Let them sit for four days.

  4. Wash them and tie them in a clean cloth.

  5. Boil until the bones come out easily from the head.

  6. Remove the skin as whole as possible.

  7. Cut the meat into small pieces.

Press and set

  1. In a round tin shaped like a small cheese, lay two strips of cloth across each other.

  2. Place the skin around the tin.

  3. Fill it halfway with the highly seasoned meat.

  4. Add slices of tongue, then the rest of the meat and remaining tongue.

  5. Draw the cloth tightly across the top.

  6. Place a board or plate on it.

  7. Add a heavy weight.

  8. Do not remove the weight until completely cold.

  9. Serve with vinegar and mustard for luncheon or supper.

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. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Pig head
Provides the meat and gelatinous bones that set the head cheese as it cools.
Pig tongues
Add firm, sliced pieces of meat that give the set loaf contrast in texture.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the meat and draws out moisture, helping to preserve it.
Saltpetre
Helps the meat keep its pink colour during curing.

The step that matters

Keep the weight on until completely cold. Pressing while the meat cools lets the gelatine from the bones bind the pieces into a firm, sliceable loaf. Lifting the weight early can leave it crumbly.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Cabbagefits about as well
  4. Cucumberfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, 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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