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Brawn, to Make

A savory meat jelly made from pig's head, beef, and spices, cooked, cooled, and set in a tin.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Brawn, to Make

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut off the cheeks from the pig's head and salt them, unless the head is small, then use all of it.

  2. Clean the head thoroughly and place it in a pot with enough cold water to cover it, along with the beef.

  3. Skim the water just before it boils.

Cook and shape

  1. Boil for 2 to 3 hours until the meat comes off the bones easily.

  2. Remove the head from the pot, take off the bones, and chop the meat with a sharp knife while it's hot.

  3. Mix in the seasoning and stir well.

  4. Quickly transfer the mixture into a brawn tin or a cake tin, pressing it down with weights.

  5. Leave the weights on for several hours until it cools completely.

  6. To unmold, dip the tin in boiling water for 1-2 minutes, then turn it out.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  3. Beef + clovetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Pig's head
Provides collagen-rich meat and connective tissue that set into a firm jelly as it cools.
Lean beef
Adds meat flavour and body to the mixture.
Salt
Seasons the meat and helps draw out flavour during cooking.

The step that matters

Pressing the mixture while it is hot. Chopped meat must be transferred quickly and pressed under weights while still hot, because the gelatin from the bones sets as it cools. Pressing packs the meat into a dense, sliceable block; waiting lets it set loosely and unevenly.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Rosemaryfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, 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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