Skip to main content
Main

Broiled Pigs' Feet

Broiled pigs' feet are boiled, then broiled after being split and seasoned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Flour and butter 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 ↓

Broiled Pigs' Feet

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the feet

  1. Scrape and wash the pigs' feet thoroughly.

  2. Tie each foot in a separate piece of cheesecloth.

  3. Place the feet in a stew pan.

  4. Add salt.

  5. Cover with boiling water.

  6. Boil once, then reduce heat.

Simmer and cool

  1. Simmer for 6 hours.

  2. Remove from heat and let cool.

  3. Drain the feet without removing the cloth, then remove the cloth.

  4. Split the feet.

Broil and serve

  1. Dredge with salt, pepper, and flour.

  2. Broil over clear coals for 10 minutes.

  3. Serve on a warm platter, seasoned with salt, pepper, and butter.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

Flour and butter 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

Pigs' feet
Provide the main meat and gelatin-rich connective tissue that becomes tender during long simmering.
Flour
Coats the surface so it browns and crisps under the broiler.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the finished surface as a seasoning.

The step that matters

Simmer for 6 hours. Long, gentle simmering at a low heat breaks down collagen in the connective tissue, making the feet tender. Boiling hard can toughen the meat and break the feet apart, so the heat should stay low once the water has come up to a boil.

“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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes