Skip to main content
Main

Mock Brawn

A meat loaf made from tripe, hog feet, tongues, cheek, bacon, pork, and grisken, seasoned with saltpetre, sea salt, pepper, and allspice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,395 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Mock Brawn

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meats

  1. Thoroughly cleanse the tripe with salt and wash it in many waters.

  2. Cut the gristle from the neat's feet.

  3. Chop the pigs' tongues, bacon cheek, bacon ears, streaky pork, and grisken into square pieces.

  4. Sprinkle the saltpetre over the meat and let it sit for 1–2 hours.

  5. Season the mixture with coarse sea salt, black pepper, and allspice.

Stuff and wrap

  1. Stuff the mixture into the tripe.

  2. Roll the stuffed tripe in a cloth.

  3. Bind the cloth tightly with tape.

  4. Boil the wrapped mixture for 4 hours.

  5. Keep the cloth on the mixture.

  6. Tighten the tape.

Press and finish

  1. Let it hang until cold with a large weight attached.

  2. Press the mixture in a round mold for a night or more.

  3. Remove the cloth.

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 + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Meat + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,208 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

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

  4. Pork + allspicetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,194 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  5. Meat + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,777 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Tripe
Wraps the mixture and holds its shape during boiling and pressing.
Pigs' tongues
Adds gelatinous body that helps the set mixture hold together when cold.
Neat's feet
Releases gelatin during boiling, helping the mixture set firm when cooled.
Saltpetre
Cures the meat, giving it a pink colour and a cured flavour.
Streaky pork
Contributes fat that keeps the mixture moist and tender.
Black pepper
Adds sharp, aromatic heat that seasons the meat throughout.

The step that matters

Let it hang until cold with a large weight attached. Pressing while the mixture cools lets the gelatin set and fat settle, so the brawn slices cleanly rather than crumbling.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, pork, pepper. 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.

You might also like

Pork CakePork Cake107 recipesRoast PorkRoast Pork82 recipesMeat CroquettesMeat Croquettes52 recipesMeatballsMeatballs37 recipes