Home › The Principles of Cookery › Brawn of Sheep's Head
Brawn of Sheep's Head
Boil a sheep's head with a little salt and an onion until quite tender. Then take all the meat off the bones and cut it into neat pieces, keeping the tongue whole. Slice three hard-boiled eggs and place them at the bottom of a wetted mould; put the pieces of meat in with the tongue in the centre, add a liberal quantity of black pepper, a few crushed peppercorns, some salt, a little chopped parsley, and a few small pieces of bacon. Pour about half a tea-cupful of stock over, and when cold turn out, and garnish with parsley. Probable cost, 6d. per pound.
A cold moulded brawn that sets on the natural gelatine of the head rather than on any added setting agent. Almost all the modern work is in sourcing and preparing the head; the assembly is trivial.
- Sourcing the headA whole sheep's or lamb's head is a special order from a halal or traditional butcher, and it should arrive split in half with the brains and eyes removed. Ask for it cleaned and skinned; if there is any wool residue at the muzzle, scrape and singe it before soaking.
- Soak before boilingTwo to three hours in several changes of cold salted water draws out blood and gives a clear, pale set. The original does not mention it.
- "Until quite tender"Reckon on 2½ to 3 hours at a bare simmer for a mature sheep, closer to 2 hours for lamb. The meat should slide from the jawbone without resistance. A rolling boil clouds the liquor and toughens the cheek.
- The tongueLift it out as soon as it is tender and peel the rough outer skin while it is still hot; it will not come away once cold. Trimming the root of gristle is worthwhile if the tongue is to sit whole in the centre as a slicing feature.
- The half tea-cupful of stockRoughly 2 to 3 fl oz (a Victorian teacupful is usually reckoned at about a quarter pint), and it should be the strained, skimmed cooking liquor from the head itself, reduced if it seems thin. That liquor is heavy with collagen and is what sets the brawn; ordinary shop stock is unlikely to gel and the mould may collapse when turned out.
- The mouldWetting the mould with cold water is what allows a clean release, and it still works. A 1 to 1.5 pint pudding basin or loaf tin suits one head. Press the meat down firmly as you pack so there are no voids.
- Setting and storage"When cold" meant a cold larder overnight. Chill it in the refrigerator instead, weighted with a small plate and a tin, for at least 8 hours. Eat within three days; this is a cooked, unpreserved meat jelly with no vinegar or cure to protect it.
- The baconVictorian bacon was heavily salted and used here as seasoning as much as filling. Modern streaky bacon should be cooked and finely diced, and the salt in the seasoning reduced accordingly.
- YieldOne head gives roughly 1 to 1½ lb of picked meat, enough for six to eight servings sliced cold with mustard, pickles or a sharp salad.
Brawn is head meat set in its own jelly, and the word comes through Old French braon, meaning a lump of flesh or muscle; the same dish is head cheese in America and fromage de tête in France. Pig's head was the usual English base, so a sheep's head version marks this out as thrift cookery from the cheaper end of the butcher's counter, where the whole point was to extract meat, gelatine and broth from a joint most households could afford. Cassell's habit of quoting a "probable cost" per pound tells you who the book was written for: 6d. a pound, and the sheep's head had a particular standing in Scottish and northern cookery, where singed heads for broth were sold as a distinct trade. The hard-boiled egg slices lining the mould are pure presentation, a way of giving a poor man's cut a decorative face when turned out.