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Mock Brawn

Mock Brawn is a stuffed tripe dish made with various pork parts, seasoned and boiled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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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 coarse sea salt and wash in many waters.

  2. Cut the tripe, gristle, tongues, bacon cheek, ears, and pork into square pieces.

  3. Sprinkle the pieces with finely pounded saltpetre and let sit for 1-2 hours.

  4. Season with coarse sea salt, black pepper, and allspice, then mix well.

Wrap and boil

  1. Stuff the mixture into the tripe and roll it tightly in a cloth, binding it with tape.

  2. Boil the wrapped mixture for 4 hours.

  3. After boiling, do not remove the cloth; tighten the tape and hang it with a weight until cold.

Press and finish

  1. Press it in a round mold for a night or more, then 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

Saltpetre
Helps the meat keep its pink colour and firm, cured flavour during resting.
Tripe
Acts as the outer casing that holds the filling together during boiling and pressing.
Gristle from neat's feet
Adds body and gelatine so the set mixture holds its shape when cold.
Pigs' tongues
Contributes rich meat texture and flavour to the filling.
Streaky flap of pork
Adds fat that keeps the filling moist and tender through long boiling.
Black pepper and allspice
Provide warm aromatic spice that flavours the meat throughout.

The step that matters

Hanging and pressing until cold. The mixture must be kept tightly bound and weighted while it cools so the gelatine from the gristle and rind can set into a firm, sliceable loaf 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.

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