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Tonbridge Brawn

A preserved pig head dish from Tonbridge, seasoned with saltpetre, sugar, spices, and boiled with herbs and vegetables.

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

Prepare the head

  1. Remove the brain and bones from the pig's head, sprinkle the inside with coarse sea salt, and let it drain overnight.

  2. Clean the ears and feet, rinse them from the brine, and place them in a large pan.

Cure

  1. Rub the ears and feet with saltpetre mixed with sugar; after 12 hours, add coarse sea salt.

  2. Pour vinegar over the ears and feet and turn them in the pickle every 24 hours for a week.

  3. Wash off the ears and feet, then boil them for about 1.5 hours.

  4. Bone the feet while warm and trim the gristle from the ends of the ears.

Season and roll

  1. Mix grated nutmeg, mace, cayenne, and cloves; wash the head, wipe it, and flatten it on a board.

  2. Cut some flesh from the thickest parts of the head and season the meat with the spice mixture.

  3. Layer the seasoned meat with the ears and feet, roll it tightly, and bind it with broad tape.

  4. Wrap the rolled meat in a thin pudding cloth and tie it securely at both ends.

Cook

  1. Place the head with bones and trimmings, herbs, onions, celery, carrots, and peppercorns in a braising pan or suitable vessel.

  2. Cover with cold water and 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
Provides the meat, skin and connective tissue that turn into the set jelly.
Saltpetre
Cures the meat, helping it keep its pink colour and resist spoilage.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture and preserves the meat while seasoning it.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the salt and rounds out the cured flavour.
Vinegar
Adds acidity to the pickle, sharpening flavour and helping preserve the ears and feet.
Nutmeg
Adds warm, aromatic spice that flavours the meat.

The step that matters

Boil gently for 4 hours. Gentle simmering keeps the meat intact while collagen slowly converts to gelatine, which is what sets the brawn. A hard boil breaks up the meat and makes the jelly cloudy and loose.

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.

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