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Mock Brawn

A preserved meat made from a hog's head, salted, boiled, and seasoned with pepper, salt, vinegar, and liquor.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,814 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Mock Brawn

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head

  1. Clean the hog's head, remove the brains and ears, rub salt into it, and let it drain for 24 hours.

  2. Apply saltpetre and common salt to the head and let it sit for 3 days.

  3. Cover the head with water in a pan for 2 more days, then wash it well.

Cook and form the brawn

  1. Boil the head until the bones come out, remove the bones, and chop the meat into 1-inch pieces.

  2. Remove the skin from the head and tongue, cut the tongue into small bits, and season with pepper and salt.

  3. Place one side of the skin in a small pan, press the chopped meat and tongue into it, cover with the other side of the skin, and press down.

  4. Let it cool, then turn it out to form a brawn.

Finish and serve

  1. If the head is too fatty, prepare some lean pork to mix in.

  2. Boil salt, vinegar, and liquor together, then pour the mixture over the head when it cools.

  3. Boil the ears longer than the head, cut them into thin strips, and distribute them around the dish.

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

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

  2. Pepper + porktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

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

  3. Vinegar + porktop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

What each ingredient does

Hog's head
Provides the meat, skin and gelatinous connective tissue that set the brawn.
Saltpetre
Cures the meat, helping it keep its pink colour and firm texture during the curing days.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour of the set brawn.
Lean pork
Adds leaner meat to balance a head that is too fatty.

The step that matters

Pressing the chopped meat into the skin. Pressing firmly while the meat is still warm lets the natural gelatin from the skin and bones bind the pieces together, so the brawn holds its shape when turned out and cooled.

“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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