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Pig's Pettitoes

A stew of pig's feet, liver, heart, bacon, mace, peppercorns, thyme, onion, and gravy, served with toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Isabella Beeton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,585 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Pig's Pettitoes

4 persons

Ingredients

Directions

Stew the offal

  1. Put the liver, heart, and pettitoes into a stewpan with the bacon, mace, peppercorns, thyme, onion, and gravy, and simmer gently for 1/4 hour.

  2. Take out the heart and liver, mince them very fine.

  3. Keep stewing the feet until quite tender, which will be from 20 minutes to 1/2 hour, reckoning from the time that they boiled up first.

Finish the gravy

  1. Put back the minced liver, thicken the gravy with a little butter and flour, season with pepper and salt, and simmer over a gentle fire for 5 minutes, occasionally stirring.

Serve

  1. Dish the mince, split the feet, arrange them round alternately with sippets of toasted bread, and pour the gravy in the middle.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

54Calories
2 gProtein
0 gFat
12 gCarbs

Counts 4 of 5 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 4 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Thyme1 tsp dried (1.4g)4
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Macenot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Isabella Beeton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

  2. Thyme + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  4. Thyme + macetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,113 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

Mace and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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

Liver (in the method)
Breaks down into the minced base that gives the gravy body and rich flavour.
Butter and flour (in the method)
Flour thickens the gravy and butter adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel.
Pettitoes (in the method)
Gelatinous feet release collagen, giving the gravy body and a silky texture.
Gravy
Forms the cooking liquid and sauce that carries the flavour of the whole dish.

The step that matters

Stewing the feet until tender. Pig's feet are rich in connective tissue that only turns tender and gelatinous after long, gentle simmering. Stopping early leaves them tough, while boiling hard can toughen the meat and cloud the gravy.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against thyme, onion, pepper. 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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