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BRAWN (another way)
Take the fat, ears, and tongue of a pig's head, and any pieces which may have been cut off in trimming, and soak in salt and water all night. Cleanse, and boil them for three hours, with only enough water to keep them from burning, and the meat from getting dry. The bones should then be taken out, the ears cut into strips, and the tongue into slices. Put the bones into the saucepan with the liquor, a large onion, two blades of mace, six allspice, twenty-five peppercorns, two bay-leaves, and a little thyme. Boil for half an hour, strain the liquor, put it with the meat, boil once more, and pour into a brawn mould. When required the brawn may be separated from the moulds by dipping them into hot water, or by placing a hot towel around them for a few minutes.
A head cheese in all but name: the collagen in a pig's head sets the liquor to jelly with no added gelatine. The whole thing hinges on keeping the cooking liquid concentrated, so resist the urge to top up the pot.
- Water level is the whole trick"Only enough water to keep them from burning" is deliberate. A flooded pot gives a broth too dilute to set, and the recipe never calls for gelatine because it does not need to — the skin, ears and bones supply it.
- Sourcing the headButchers rarely display pig's heads but will usually order half a head, ears and tongue attached, with a few days' notice. A single tongue plus a couple of trotters and a piece of skin-on shoulder will give a comparable set if a head is unobtainable.
- The overnight soakSoaking in salt and water draws out blood and firms the meat. Do it in the refrigerator, not on a cold larder shelf as the book assumes.
- Blades of maceMace is the lacy outer coat of nutmeg; a "blade" is one whole piece. Something in the region of a quarter to a half teaspoon of ground mace will stand in for two blades, though the ground version clouds the jelly.
- Brawn mouldA plain deep basin, a loaf tin or a terrine all work. Line it with cling film for a clean turn-out, and fill it while everything is still hot so the meat and liquor knit together.
- Setting timeThe book is silent on this. Cool at room temperature until steam stops, then refrigerate at least eight hours and preferably overnight before turning out.
- Season while hot, taste while coldChilled jellied meat tastes markedly blander than the hot liquor. Season the strained stock more assertively than seems right, and add a splash of vinegar or a squeeze of lemon before moulding to cut the fat.
- Yield and servingDepending on how much trim comes with the head, expect something in the region of a small loaf, enough for perhaps eight as a cold cut. Slice thinly and serve with mustard, pickled walnuts or a sharp chutney.
- KeepingThis is a fresh preparation, not a cured one. Treat it as cooked meat: refrigerated and covered, three to four days.
Brawn is one of the oldest surviving uses for the parts of a pig that will not roast, and the English word predates the dish's modern meaning — in Middle English brawn meant simply muscle or boar's flesh, which is why the same word gives us "brawny". Pressed meats of this general kind appear in English cookery manuscripts long before Cassell's, though medieval brawn most often meant boar's flesh, collared or pressed, and cannot securely be identified with the modern head-and-jelly preparation; equivalents exist across Europe: French fromage de tête, German Sülze, Italian coppa di testa. Its place in a late-Victorian household dictionary reflects the economics of buying meat by the carcass rather than the cut: a head cost little, and a household that killed or bought a whole pig had ears, tongue and trimmings to account for. Brawn was traditionally a Christmas and cold-weather food, partly because the pig-killing season ran through the colder months and partly because it needs a cold room to set — the recipe's confidence that the mould will simply firm up belongs to a kitchen with a stone-floored larder rather than a refrigerator.