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Hogs-head Cheese

A preserved meat jelly made from hog heads, seasoned, pressed, and served cold or fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and pepper 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 ↓

Hogs-head Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the heads

  1. Soak the hog's heads in salt and water for 2 days.

  2. Wash and scrape the heads clean.

  3. Boil the heads until all the bones come out.

  4. Remove the heads.

  5. Pick out all the bones.

Season and press

  1. Chop the meat finely.

  2. Season the meat with sage, black pepper, salt, cayenne, and a small spoonful of spice.

  3. Place the mixture in a cloth or tin pan.

  4. Cover the mixture and weigh it down to press.

  5. Once cold, remove from the mold.

Finish and serve

  1. Cover with vinegar.

  2. Slice to serve cold.

  3. Beat and fry with or without batter.

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. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Sage + vinegartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together618 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Hog's heads
Provide the meat and gelatinous body that bind the chopped mixture together when cold.
Sage
Adds a savoury, aromatic herbal flavour to the meat.
Black pepper
Adds sharp, mildly hot aroma that seasons the meat.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich meat and helps preserve the surface.

The step that matters

Pressing while cold. Weighing the mixture down as it cools lets the meat and natural gelatine set into a firm, sliceable block. Pressing too little leaves a crumbly head cheese that falls apart when sliced.

Swap the sage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, vinegar):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Dillfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Sagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, vinegar. 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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