Skip to main content
Main

Brawn, Superior

A savory meat jelly made from pig head, feet, tongues, pork belly, onion, carrot, herbs, and spices.

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

Why it works: Carrot and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Brawn, Superior

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the meat

  1. Pickle the meat as directed.

  2. Boil the meat with the onion, carrot, and herbs until the bones fall out.

  3. Cut the meat into small pieces.

Set the head cheese

  1. Season with white pepper, ground mace, cayenne, and salt if needed.

  2. Add a little of the cooking liquid to the meat and mix well.

  3. Pour the mixture into a tin mould and leave until firm before turning out.

  4. Store in a cold place for better firmness.

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. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  2. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  3. White pepper + macetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  4. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Pig's head
Its bones, skin and connective tissue release gelatin that helps the dish set firm.
Pig's feet
Rich in collagen, they release gelatin during boiling that helps the mixture hold its shape.
Streaky pork
Its fat adds moisture and richness, so the set meat stays tender rather than dry.
Onion
Its aromatic flavour is drawn into the cooking liquid, seasoning the meat from within.

The step that matters

Leave the mixture until firm in the mould. The set depends on gelatin from bones, skin and feet cooling in the liquid. If the mould is turned out before it has chilled fully, the head cheese will be soft and will not hold its shape.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, onion, carrot, mace, 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.

More head cheese recipes

Calf's 5Pork 5Hogs 3Pig's 3 See all 91 →

You might also like

Carrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesPork CakePork Cake107 recipesRoast PorkRoast Pork82 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipes