Skip to main content
Main

Tonbridge Brawn

A preserved pig's head dish with ears and feet, pickled, boiled, and seasoned with spices and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 pig's head.

  2. Remove the brain and bones.

  3. Strew the inside with coarse sea salt.

  4. Let it drain overnight.

Cure the ears and feet

  1. Clean the ears and feet.

  2. Wipe off the brine.

  3. Place them in a large pan.

  4. Rub the ears and feet with saltpetre and sugar mixture.

  5. After 12 hours, add coarse sea salt.

  6. Pour vinegar over them.

  7. Turn the ears and feet in the pickle every 24 hours for a week.

  8. Wash off the pickle.

Cook and season

  1. Boil the ears and feet for about 1.5 hours.

  2. Bone the feet while warm.

  3. Trim the gristle from the ears.

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

  5. Wash the head.

  6. Flatten it.

  7. Cut some flesh from the thickest parts.

  8. Season the meat with the spice mixture.

  9. Intermix the meat with ears and feet.

Roll and cook

  1. Roll it up tightly.

  2. Bind with broad tape.

  3. Wrap in a thin pudding cloth.

  4. Tie securely at both ends.

  5. Place in a braising pan or suitable vessel with bones, herbs, onions, celery, carrots, and peppercorns.

  6. Cover with cold water.

  7. 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. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  5. Clove + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Pig's head
Supplies the meat, ears, feet and bones that give the brawn its body.
Saltpetre
Cures the meat, helping preserve it and give it a pink colour.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture and preserves the meat during curing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity to the pickle, helping preserve the ears and feet.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the salt and softens the cure's flavour.

The step that matters

Boil gently for 4 hours. Rapid boiling toughens meat and can break the roll apart. A gentle simmer keeps the meat tender while collagen slowly converts to gelatine, which is what later sets the brawn.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar, nutmeg, pepper, clove, onion, celery. 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.

You might also like

Carrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesCelery StewCelery Stew25 recipesCelery CroquettesCelery Croquettes16 recipes