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 ↓
Pigs' Feet Soused
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the feet
Scald and scrape the pigs' feet clean.
Singe the toes in hot embers if necessary to remove the covering.
Wash the feet and place them in a pot of hot (not boiling) water with a little coarse sea salt.
Boil gently until the flesh breaks easily with a fork and the bones are loosened.
Skim off any scum that rises.
Pickle in vinegar
Transfer the feet to cold vinegar, enough to cover them, and add one-third of the water used for boiling.
Add whole pepper, allspice, and optional cloves and mace.
Cover the pot or jar tightly.
Serve the soured feet cold from the vinegar.
Fry and serve
Split them in two, dip in wheat flour, and fry in hot lard until nicely browned.
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.
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Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,874 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together17,451 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
-
Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together6,395 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Clove + macetop 6% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together8,400 recipes
Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
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Allspice + macetop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Pigs' feet
- Provide gelatinous flesh and collagen that become tender when boiled and set when cooled.
- Cold vinegar
- Acidity that sours and preserves the feet while softening the flavour of the meat.
- Wheat flour
- Dry coating that helps the outside brown and crisp when fried.
- Lard
- Frying fat that conducts heat and promotes browning of the floured surface.
- Whole pepper
- Adds aromatic heat that flavours the pickling liquid.
The step that matters
Boil gently until the flesh breaks easily. Boiling too hard can toughen and break up the meat and fracture the feet unevenly, while gentle simmering lets collagen soften slowly so the flesh becomes tender and the bones loosen without falling apart.
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):
- Nutmegfits about as well
- Cinnamonfits about as well
- Clovethe original
- 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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