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Pigs' Feet a LA Vinaigrette

Pickled pigs' feet simmered in a butter‑flour vinaigrette sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Pigs' Feet a LA Vinaigrette

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the pickled pigs' feet into small pieces and place them in an earthen dish.

  2. Pour the boiling water over the pigs' feet.

Make the sauce

  1. Mix the butter and flour together, then add the mixture to the water.

  2. Season with salt, pepper, and Worcestershire sauce.

Cook

  1. Cook for 2 hours in an Aladdin Pail.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Flour + saucetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Pickled pigs' feet
Provides the main body of the dish and its savory, tangy flavour.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the liquid a smoother mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid as it heats, giving it body.
Worcestershire sauce
Adds savory depth and a sharp, tangy note to the liquid.

The step that matters

Adding the butter and flour mixture. Flour clumps if dropped in raw or unevenly mixed; blending it with butter first helps it disperse smoothly into the hot liquid so the thickening is even.

“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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