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Mock Brawn

A roast made by stuffing a pig's shoulder bone cavity with a mixture of veal, ham, suet, herbs, and wine, then baking.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 22 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Mock Brawn

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the pork

  1. Remove the blade-bone from the pig's shoulder and boil it gently for 2 hours or more.

  2. Once cooled, season the meat with black pepper, cayenne, salt, allspice, minced onion, and thyme.

  3. Let the seasoned meat marinate overnight.

Make the force-meat

  1. The next day, prepare a force-meat by mixing pounded veal, ham, beef suet, parsley, thyme, onion, lemon peel, salt, nutmeg, black pepper, and cayenne.

  2. Bind the mixture with a beaten egg.

  3. Stuff the mixture into the cavity where the bone was removed.

Bake and finish

  1. Place the stuffed meat in a deep pan, brown side down, on twigs to prevent sticking.

  2. Pour in a bottle of beer.

  3. Bake in the oven at 400°F (200°C).

  4. When nearly done, remove the meat from the oven.

  5. Skim off excess fat.

  6. Add a bottle of Madeira or white wine and lemon juice.

  7. Return the meat to the oven.

  8. Bake until tender, about 6 to 7 hours for older pigs.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Allspice + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,077 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  4. Allspice + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,289 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Pork shoulder blade-bone
Its meat is slowly cooked and seasoned, forming the body of the dish.
Pounded veal
Adds a fine, tender texture to the force-meat filling.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the force-meat moist during long baking.
Egg
Binds the force-meat so it holds together when sliced.
Ham
Adds savoury, salty flavour to the force-meat filling.
Madeira or white wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the liquid in the pan during baking.

The step that matters

Return the meat to the oven and bake until tender. Long, gentle baking breaks down connective tissue in the tough shoulder meat. Stopping early leaves it firm and chewy, so it should be checked for tenderness rather than timed by the clock alone.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, allspice, thyme, veal, ham, beef, parsley):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, allspice, thyme, veal, ham, beef, parsley. 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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