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Pigs' Feet Pickled

Pickled pig's feet boiled, then preserved in spiced vinegar, served cold or warm.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By F. L. Gillette and Hugo Ziemann · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Pigs' Feet Pickled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the feet

  1. Scrape and wash twelve pig's feet clean.

  2. Put them into a saucepan with enough hot (not boiling) water to cover them.

  3. When partly done, salt them.

  4. Boil for four to five hours until soft.

Pickle

  1. Pack them in a stone crock.

  2. Pour hot spiced vinegar over them.

  3. Let them rest; they will be ready in a day or two.

Serve

  1. (Optional) Split the pig's feet for breakfast.

  2. Make a batter of two eggs, a cup of milk, salt, a teaspoonful of butter, and enough flour to make a thick batter.

  3. Dip each piece in the batter and fry in hot lard.

  4. (Alternative) Dip them in beaten egg and flour and fry.

  5. Souse is good eaten cold or warm.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

329Calories
14 gProtein
25 gFat
13 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 3 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78

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

By F. L. Gillette and Hugo Ziemann. 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Pigs' feet
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender through long boiling.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help it set and brown when fried.
Milk
Thins the batter so it coats the pieces evenly.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the batter.

The step that matters

Boil for four to five hours until soft. Collagen-rich pig's feet only turn tender after long, gentle simmering that slowly converts connective tissue into gelatin. Stopping early leaves them tough, and the vinegar pickling cannot soften them afterward.

“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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