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Pigs' Feet Cheese

A cheese made from cooked pig's feet seasoned with salt, pepper, allspice, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,395 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pigs' Feet Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cook the pigs' feet until very tender.

  2. Remove all bones and season with coarse sea salt, black pepper, and a small amount of allspice.

Press and rest

  1. Pack the mixture in a crock and place a heavy weight on top.

  2. Let it sit for several days before using.

Serve

  1. Serve sliced in vinegar.

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. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + vinegartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,548 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  3. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Pigs' feet
Provide the meat and gelatin that bind the mixture into a firm, sliceable set.
Allspice
Adds a warm, aromatic flavour that rounds out the savoury meat.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich meat at serving.

The step that matters

Pack and press the mixture. Gelatin from the bones and connective tissue sets the meat as it cools, so the mixture must be packed firmly and weighted to hold together when sliced.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Dillfits better
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, vinegar. 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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