Philadelphia Scrapple
Ingredients
Directions
Cook the head
Cook the pig's head in boiling water until the flesh slips easily from the bones.
Remove the bones and chop the meat finely when cool.
Remove the fat from the cooled liquid and reheat it to boiling point.
Make the mush
Add 1 teaspoon of salt for each quart of liquid.
Sift in enough cornmeal while stirring to achieve a mush consistency. Boil hard for several minutes.
Reduce heat and cook slowly for an hour, stirring occasionally.
Stir in the chopped meat and pour into bread pans.
Set and serve
Set aside in a cool place to set.
When ready to use, cut into ½ inch thick slices and brown in fat.
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
What each ingredient does
- Pigs head
- Provides the meat and gelatinous liquid that bind the scrapple as it cools and sets.
- Cornmeal
- Thickens the cooking liquid into a mush that holds its shape when chilled and sliced.
The step that matters
Cooking the cornmeal mush slowly after boiling. Cornmeal must be sifted in while stirring to avoid lumps, then cooked gently for a long time so the starch fully gelatinises and the mush thickens evenly without scorching on the base of the pot.
“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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