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Tonbridge Brawn

A preserved pork head and ears, feet, and other parts pickled, boiled, and seasoned with spices and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 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

Cure the pork

  1. Split open the head of the pork, remove the brain and bones, and sprinkle the inside with coarse sea salt. Let it drain overnight.

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

  3. Rub the ears and feet with a mixture of saltpetre and sugar.

  4. After 12 hours, add coarse sea salt.

  5. Pour vinegar over the ears and feet.

  6. Turn them in the pickle every 24 hours for a week.

  7. Wash off the pickle.

Cook the ears and feet

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

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

Form and boil the brawn

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

  2. Cut some flesh from the thickest parts.

  3. Season the meat with grated nutmeg, mace, cayenne, and cloves.

  4. Mix in the meat from the ears and feet.

  5. Roll the mixture tightly and bind it with broad tape.

  6. Wrap it in a thin pudding cloth and secure both ends.

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

  8. Boil gently for 4 hours.

  9. Let it cool in the cooking liquid.

Press and serve

  1. Remove the cloth and place the brawn between two dishes with a heavy weight on top.

  2. The next day, remove the tape and serve whole or sliced.

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

Pork head
Provides the bulk of the meat, which sets into a firm, sliceable jelly as it cools.
Saltpetre
Cures the meat, helping it keep its pink colour and firm texture during curing.
Sugar
Balances the salt in the cure and softens the savoury flavour of the meat.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the meat during curing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity to the pickle, helping to preserve and brighten the flavour of the meat.
Onions
Add aromatic sweetness and depth to the cooking liquid that flavours the brawn.

The step that matters

Boil gently for 4 hours. A gentle simmer keeps the meat tender and lets collagen from the bones and skin dissolve into gelatin, which sets the brawn. A hard boil can toughen the meat and cloud the liquid.

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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