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Another Mock Brawn

A preserved meat product made from boiled neats' feet and salted pork, wrapped in cloth and stored in brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,563 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Another Mock Brawn

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Boil the neats' feet until very tender and remove the meat.

  2. Boil the salted belly piece of pork until almost cooked, then remove the bones.

Roll and cook

  1. Roll the neats' feet and pork together tightly in a strong cloth and secure with coarse tape.

  2. Boil the wrapped mixture until very tender, then hang it up until cold.

Store and serve

  1. Store in a brine solution of salt and water boiled with vinegar.

  2. If it may spoil, slice and fry it with or without butter.

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. Pork + vinegartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. White pepper + vinegartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pork + white peppertop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together791 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl butyrate (fruity, apple).

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

What each ingredient does

Neats' feet
Their gelatine sets the meat into a firm, sliceable mass when cooled.
Belly piece of pork
Adds fat and meaty flavour to the set mixture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity to the brine, helping to preserve the meat and sharpen its flavour.

The step that matters

Rolling and tying the wrapped mixture. The cloth must be rolled tightly and secured firmly so the meat pieces bind together as they cook. A loose roll can leave gaps and uneven texture once the mixture is cold and sliced.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, 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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