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Soused Feet in Magout

Pickled pig's feet simmered in vinegar and spices, then fried and stewed in a brown flour and butter gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Soused Feet in Magout

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the feet

  1. Scald and scrape the pig's feet clean.

  2. If necessary, singe the toes in hot embers to remove the covering.

  3. Wash the feet and place them in a pot of warm water with a little salt.

  4. Boil gently until the flesh is tender and the bones loosen. Remove any scum that rises while boiling.

Pickle

  1. Once done, take the feet out and place them in vinegar, adding the reserved boiling water.

  2. Add whole pepper, cloves, and mace to the vinegar.

  3. Cover the feet in a jar tightly.

Fry and serve

  1. Split the feet in two.

  2. Dredge the split feet with flour.

  3. Fry the feet until golden brown.

  4. Prepare well-seasoned gravy thickened with brown flour and butter.

  5. Stew the fried feet in the gravy for a few minutes.

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 + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  5. Clove + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,671 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Pig's feet
Provide the main meat, gelatinous skin and bones that become tender when boiled.
Vinegar
Acidifies the feet during pickling, giving the dish its sharp, preserved flavour.
Flour
Coats the split feet so they brown when fried and help thicken the gravy.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the brown-flour gravy.

The step that matters

Boil gently until the flesh is tender and the bones loosen. Rapid boiling toughens meat and breaks up the skin unevenly, while gentle simmering slowly converts collagen to gelatin, so the flesh becomes tender without falling apart.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, pepper, clove, flour, butter. 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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