Name: Pig's Head and Feet, Soused
Ingredients: 1 pig's head; 2 pig's feet; 4 cups water; ½ cup vinegar; ¼ cup lime or lemon juice; 1 teaspoon coarse sea salt; ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper; ¼ teaspoon black pepper; mustard for serving

Why it works: Lime and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,491 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Pig's Head and Feet, Soused

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Clean the pig's head and feet thoroughly.
Boil the head and feet in water for 1 hour.

Make the sour sauce

In a bowl, mix part of the boiling liquid with vinegar, lime or lemon juice, salt, cayenne, and black pepper.
Add the head and feet to the sauce, either cut or whole.
Pour everything into a deep dish and let it cool.

Serve

Serve cold with mustard and 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.

Lime + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,491 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Lime + mustardtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together392 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,067 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

Vinegar: Adds sourness that sharpens the flavour and helps preserve the cooked meat.
Lime or lemon juice: Adds acidity that gives the sauce a bright, sour taste.
Pig's head: Provides the main meat, gelatin-rich skin and connective tissue that set as the dish cools.
Pig's feet: Adds collagen-rich gelatin that helps the cooled dish firm up.

The step that matters

Boiling the head and feet until tender. The meat must be fully cooked and tender before it is soured, because acid alone does not cook or soften tough connective tissue. Thorough boiling also releases gelatin that sets as the dish cools.

“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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Pig's Head and Feet, Soused