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To Souse a Pig's Head

A preserved pig's head, ears, and tongue, salted, boiled, layered, pickled, and served with a vinegar‑mustard sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

To Souse a Pig's Head

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Cut open the pig's head and remove the brains and tongue.

  2. Cut off the ears close to the head.

  3. Clean all parts well and salt them with coarse sea salt.

  4. Let them sit for 3-4 days.

  5. Boil the salted parts until very tender, so the bones slip out easily.

  6. Remove the bones from the head.

Press and pickle

  1. Prepare a cloth in an earthen pot.

  2. Layer half of the head in the pot with the skin side down, followed by one ear, the peeled and cut tongue, the other ear, and the remaining half of the head with the skin side up.

  3. Sprinkle salt between each layer while hot.

  4. Press down with a board and weight.

  5. Let it sit overnight.

  6. Remove from the pot and take off the cloth.

  7. For long-term storage, make a pickle with the boiling liquid and vinegar or boiled bran and water.

  8. Cool the liquid before adding the head.

Serve

  1. To serve, slice the head (not too thin), dust with flour, and fry until heated through.

  2. For sauce, combine vinegar, powdered sugar to taste, and prepared mustard in a saucepan.

  3. Boil together and serve in a sauce tureen.

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. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sauce + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,120 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

What each ingredient does

Pig's head
Forms the main body of the dish, with meat, skin and bones that set into a firm pressed mass.
Coarse sea salt
Cures the meat by drawing out moisture and seasoning it, helping preserve it.
Vinegar
Adds acidity to the pickling liquid and to the sauce, sharpening flavour and aiding preservation.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness to the sauce, balancing the sharpness of the vinegar and mustard.
Prepared mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour to the sauce.

The step that matters

Cool the liquid before adding the head. Pouring hot liquid over the pressed meat would partly cook and soften its surface, so it can spoil or turn mushy. Cooling it first keeps the texture firm and the pickle safer to store.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, flour, sugar, sauce):

  1. Mustardthe original
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Horseradishfits less well
  4. Arrowrootfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, flour, sugar, sauce. 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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