Skip to main content
Main

Pig's Feet and Ears, Fricasseed

A fricassee of pig's feet and ears simmered in milk and veal stock with spices and finished with a butter‑cream sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Pig's Feet and Ears, Fricasseed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Clean and wash the pig's feet and ears, then cut them into neat pieces, half an inch wide.

  2. Boil the pieces in 1 pint of milk until tender.

  3. Drain and dry the pieces well, then place them in a stewpan.

Make the sauce

  1. Add ½ pint of veal stock, salt, cayenne, mace, lemon rind, and sliced onion.

  2. Simmer for 15 minutes.

  3. Roll the walnut-sized butter in flour and add it along with 3 tablespoons of cream.

  4. Stir the mixture over low heat until smooth and thick.

Serve

  1. Serve the meat on a hot dish with the sauce poured around it and garnish with sliced lemon.

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + walnuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,149 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + walnuttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,039 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

Pig's feet
Their gelatinous connective tissue breaks down during simmering, giving the dish body and a rich texture.
Pig's ears
Cartilage and skin soften during boiling, adding a tender, gelatinous texture to the meat.
Milk
Gently cooks the meat while adding a mild, creamy richness to the dish.
Veal stock
Forms the savoury liquid base of the sauce and carries the flavour of the aromatics.
Butter and flour
Flour rolled into the butter thickens the sauce, and the butter adds richness and smoothness.
Cream
Adds richness and a smoother, silkier finish to the sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring the butter and flour into the sauce. Flour added directly to hot liquid clumps, so rolling the butter in flour and stirring over low heat lets it disperse and thicken smoothly. Gentle heat prevents scorching and curdling of the cream.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, veal, pepper, lemon, onion, walnut, butter):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, veal, pepper, lemon, onion, walnut, 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.

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesVeal PattiesVeal Patties50 recipesBeef, Mutton, or Veal BrothBeef, Mutton, or Veal Broth6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipes