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Scrapple. Philadelphia Style.

Scrapple is a pork head and cornmeal mixture simmered, cooled, chopped, seasoned, and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Scrapple. Philadelphia Style.

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head

  1. Clean the pig’s head.

  2. Place the head in a stew pan with 2 quarts of hot water.

  3. Simmer for 3 hours.

  4. Remove the head and let it cool.

  5. Remove the bones from the cooled head.

  6. Chop the meat finely.

Make the mush

  1. Add 2 teaspoons of salt, 1 teaspoon of pepper, and 2 leaves of sage to the meat.

  2. Return the mixture to the cooking liquid.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  4. Sprinkle in the cornmeal while stirring quickly.

  5. Cook for 2 hours.

  6. Stir occasionally to prevent burning.

Set and fry

  1. Cool the mixture in a deep pan.

  2. Cut the mixture into slices.

  3. Roll the slices in flour or breadcrumbs.

  4. Fry the slices until brown.

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. Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 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

Pig’s head
Provides the meat and gelatin-rich liquid that give the scrapple its body and savory flavor.
Cornmeal
Thickens the cooking liquid and sets the mixture so it holds its shape when sliced.
Sage
Adds an aromatic herbal flavor that complements the pork.

The step that matters

Stirring in the cornmeal and stirring often while it cooks. Cornmeal settles and scorches on the bottom of the pot if not added gradually and stirred, which can give a burnt taste and uneven thickening.

“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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