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Head Cheese

Head cheese is a meat terrine made from salted pig heads, beef trimmings, and spices, stuffed into beef bungs and boiled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Head Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Cook the salted pig heads and the beef cheek or other meats until tender.

  2. Cut the cooked meat into dice or narrow strips.

  3. Mix in the cooked pig tongues.

Season and stuff

  1. In a bowl, combine the black pepper, coriander, mustard seed, cloves, and cinnamon.

  2. Add some of the broth to the spice mixture and mix well.

  3. Stuff the mixture into beef bungs.

Poach, chill and press

  1. Drop the stuffed bungs into boiling water for 15 minutes.

  2. Transfer to cold water for 15 minutes.

  3. Press tightly between boards.

  4. Optionally, hang up and smoke the head cheese.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Coriander + cinnamontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,635 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + coriandertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,949 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Mustard + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,581 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Pig heads
Provide gelatin-rich connective tissue that sets the head cheese when cooled.
Beef cheek, meat hearts, or neck trimmings
Add meaty bulk and chewy texture to the set loaf.
Pig tongues
Contribute tender meat and a rich, savoury flavour to the mixture.
Black pepper
Adds sharp, pungent heat that seasons the meat throughout.
Broth from cooked meat
Adds moisture and gelatin that helps bind the mixture as it sets.

The step that matters

Press tightly between boards. Pressing while the mixture cools compacts the meat and dissolved gelatin so the loaf holds together when sliced. Loose pressing can leave gaps and a crumbly texture.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, coriander, clove, cinnamon, meat):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, coriander, clove, cinnamon, meat. 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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