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Pig-s' Feet Soused

A preserved dish of pig's feet cured in vinegar and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pig-s' Feet Soused

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the feet

  1. Scald and clean the pig's feet, singeing the toes if necessary.

  2. Soak in weak lime water to whiten, then wash thoroughly.

Boil and pickle

  1. Boil the feet in hot water with salt until the flesh is tender and the bones loosen. Remove any scum that rises while boiling.

  2. Transfer the feet to cold vinegar, adding an equal amount of the boiling water.

  3. Season with whole pepper, allspice, and optional cloves and mace.

  4. Cover the pot or jar tightly with a cloth and lid.

Serve

  1. Serve cold from the vinegar.

  2. Split and dip in flour before frying in hot lard until browned.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Allspice + macetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Pig's feet
Provide gelatinous skin and connective tissue that become tender during long boiling.
Vinegar
Acidifies the liquid, preserving the feet and giving them a sharp, sour flavour.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the feet during boiling and helps draw out flavour from the meat.
Wheat flour
Forms a light coating that browns in hot lard for a crisp exterior.
Hot lard
Conducts heat for frying and adds fat that promotes browning and richness.

The step that matters

Boil until the bones loosen. Boiling must run long enough for the connective tissue to soften and the bones to loosen; undercooked feet stay tough and chewy, and the pickling liquid cannot penetrate well.

Swap the clove

The recipe marks clove as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, pepper, allspice, mace, wheat, flour):

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Cinnamonfits about as well
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Marjoramfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, pepper, allspice, mace, wheat, flour. 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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