Why it works: Carrot and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,873 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓
Breakfast Brawn
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the heads
Wash the pig's heads in several waters.
Remove the brain, veins, and splinters of bone.
Cook and strain
Cook the heads in a stew-pan with enough water to cover them, adding a little salt, the scraped carrot, onion with cloves, bouquet garni, and peppercorns.
Cook for about 2 hours.
Skim occasionally.
Remove the meat from the bones.
Reduce the cooking liquid with the bones.
Cut the meat and bacon into small squares or dice.
Mould and set
Slice the hard-boiled egg.
Garnish the bottom of a small charlotte or cake tin with the sliced egg.
Fill the mold with the pieces of pig's head and bacon.
Press down lightly.
Pour about 1 pint of the reduced liquid into the mold.
Place on ice or in a cool larder for 12 hours.
Unmold and serve
Unmold by dipping the mold in warm water for a few seconds.
Dish up and garnish with fresh parsley or watercress.
Serve.
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.
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Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,873 recipes
Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
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Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together21,601 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together16,901 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).
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Egg + oniontop 34% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together23,333 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Egg + carrottop 35% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together4,481 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Egg and onion barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 23,333 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Pig's heads
- Provide the meat and gelatinous body that becomes the brawn once chilled and set.
- Bacon
- Adds smoky, salty flavour and fat that contrasts with the lean head meat.
- Hard-boiled egg
- Forms a decorative, mild-flavoured layer visible when the brawn is unmoulded.
- Reduced cooking liquid (in the method)
- Supplies gelatin-rich stock that sets the meat into a firm, sliceable mass.
The step that matters
Reduce the cooking liquid. Reducing concentrates the collagen-derived gelatin and flavour in the stock, so the liquid sets firmly when chilled instead of staying loose.
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, carrot, clove):
- Parsnipfits better
- Leekfits better
- Capsicumfits better
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, carrot, clove. 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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