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Tonbridge Brawn

A preserved pork head dish with ears, feet, and spices, boiled and braised.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Tonbridge Brawn

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head

  1. Split open the head of a porker and remove the brain and bones.

  2. Strew the inside with coarse sea salt and let it drain overnight.

  3. Clean the ears and feet, wipe off the brine, and place them in a large pan.

  4. Rub the ears and feet with a mixture of saltpetre and sugar, then add coarse sea salt after 12 hours.

  5. Pour vinegar over the ears and feet and turn them in the pickle daily for a week.

  6. Wash off the pickle, then boil the ears and feet for about 1.5 hours.

  7. Bone the feet while warm and trim the gristle from the ears.

Season and roll

  1. Mix grated nutmeg, mace, cayenne, and cloves.

  2. Wash the head without soaking, wipe it, and flatten it on a board.

  3. Cut some flesh from the thickest parts and season the meat with spices.

  4. Intermix the seasoned meat with the ears and feet, roll it tightly, and bind it with broad tape.

  5. Wrap it in a thin pudding cloth and tie securely at both ends.

Boil

  1. Place the head in a braising pan or suitable vessel with bones, trimmings, herbs, onions, celery, carrots, peppercorns, and enough cold water to cover.

  2. Boil gently for 4 hours.

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. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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 gives the characteristic cured flavour.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the meat during curing.
Sugar
Balances the salt and softens the cured flavour.
Vinegar
Adds acidity to the pickle, helping to firm and flavour the ears and feet.
Pork
Forms the body of the brawn, setting into a firm jelly as it cooks with its bones.

The step that matters

Boiling gently for 4 hours. A gentle simmer keeps the meat tender and lets collagen from the bones and gristle break down into gelatin that sets the brawn. A hard boil toughens the meat and can break up the set.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, sugar, vinegar, nutmeg, mace, pepper, clove):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, sugar, vinegar, nutmeg, mace, pepper, 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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