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Head Cheese

A preserved meat jelly made from a boiled hog's head, seasoned, and set in a pickle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Head Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head

  1. Thoroughly clean the hog's head.

  2. Boil it until tender enough to remove all bones.

  3. Remove excess fat from the meat.

  4. While warm, season the meat with salt, pepper, and sage or summer savory.

  5. Place the seasoned meat in an earthen dish.

  6. Cover with a large plate.

  7. Press down with a heavy weight.

  8. Set aside to cool.

  9. Slice as needed.

Prepare the pickle and feet

  1. Clean and scrape the pig's feet and ears.

  2. Boil them in cold water until tender.

  3. Place the boiled feet and ears in a jar.

  4. Prepare a pickle by boiling ½ gallon of cider vinegar with whole black pepper, mace, and cloves.

  5. Pour the hot pickle over the pig's feet.

  6. Let them stand for 2-3 days before using.

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 + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Sage + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together731 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  5. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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 and gelatin-rich connective tissue that sets the head cheese.
Pig's feet and ears
Supply gelatin that helps the chilled meat set into a firm jelly.
Cider vinegar
Acidity in the pickle that preserves and sharpens the flavor of the feet.

The step that matters

Pressing the seasoned meat while it is warm. Pressing the meat under a weight while it cools packs it into a compact loaf so it holds together when sliced. Gelatin from the bones and connective tissue then sets it as it chills.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, sage, cider, vinegar, 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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