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Head Cheese

A savory meat jelly made from pig's feet and hocks, simmered with onion, spices, and sherry, then set in molds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove 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

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the pigs' feet and hocks thoroughly.

  2. Cut the cleaned pigs' feet and hocks into pieces.

  3. Place the pieces in a large pot.

  4. Cover the pot with cold water.

  5. Cook until the hocks are very tender.

  6. Remove the hocks from the pot.

  7. Cut the hock meat into small pieces, discarding the fat.

  8. Add the onion to the pot.

  9. Let the pigs' feet cook down.

  10. Strain the liquid.

Make the jelly

  1. Mix the strained liquid with the hock meat.

  2. Season the mixture with pepper, salt, cinnamon, and cloves.

  3. Return everything to the pot.

  4. Simmer for a few minutes.

  5. Stir in the sherry.

  6. Pour the mixture into molds.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 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. Pepper + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,890 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Pigs' feet
Release collagen and gelatin into the cooking liquid, which sets the mixture into a jelly as it cools.
Hocks
Add meat and collagen that cook tender and contribute to the jelly's firm set.
Onion
Adds savory aromatic flavor to the cooking liquid.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the rich, gelatinous meat.

The step that matters

Cook until the hocks are very tender. Collagen in the feet and hocks only breaks down into gelatin with long, gentle cooking. If the meat is undercooked, the strained liquid will not set firmly when chilled.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, cinnamon, clove, sherry. 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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