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Mock Brawn

A stuffed and braised mock brawn made from calf’s feet and pork belly, seasoned with mace, cloves, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper 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 ↓

Mock Brawn

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Boil the calf’s feet until tender and remove the bones.

  2. Season the boiled belly-piece of pork with mace, cloves, and cayenne pepper.

Roll and braise

  1. Spread the forcemeat on the pork and place the calf’s feet on top.

  2. Roll it up tightly and tie it with tape.

  3. Wrap it in a cloth and tie the ends.

  4. Braise until tender, then place on a dish with a board and weight to press.

Serve

  1. Once cold, serve with oil, vinegar, mustard, and sugar.

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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Clove + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,829 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 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

Calf’s feet
Their gelatin binds the pressed meat so it sets firm when cold.
Belly-piece of pork
Provides fat and meaty body that keeps the roll moist during braising.
Mace
Adds a warm, aromatic spice flavour to the seasoned pork.
Cloves
Adds a strong, aromatic spice flavour to the seasoned pork.
Cayenne pepper
Adds gentle heat that seasons the meat.

The step that matters

Braise until tender, then press while cold. Undercooked calf’s feet will not release enough gelatin to set the roll, and pressing before it cools lets the meat slide apart instead of forming a firm, sliceable block.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, clove, pepper, vinegar, mustard, sugar. 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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