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Pork Cheese

A pickled pork head set in butter, then chilled and served with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,933 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Pork Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil a well cleaned pickled pork head until tender.

  2. Bone the head and cut it into small pieces.

Set and serve

  1. Place the pieces into a buttered mold.

  2. Put a weight on top and let it set.

  3. Turn it out when ready to serve and garnish with parsley leaves.

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. Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  2. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Pork + parsleytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,804 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Pork head
Provides the meat and gelatin-rich connective tissue that binds the set mass together.

The step that matters

Letting it set under a weight. Gelatin from the boiled connective tissue firms as it cools, so the pieces hold together when turned out. Pressing under a weight helps the pieces knit into a compact, sliceable block.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, butter):

  1. Sagefits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Garlicfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, butter. 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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