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Pig's Feet and Ears Soused

A preserved dish of pig's feet and ears marinated in salt, vinegar, and mace, then breaded and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Pig's Feet and Ears Soused

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the pig's feet and ears, removing the skin.

  2. Boil them slowly until tender.

  3. Split the feet and place them with the ears in a mixture of salt and vinegar, flavored with mace.

  4. Cover the jar tightly and set it aside.

Coat and fry

  1. When ready to use, dry each piece with a cloth.

  2. Dip each piece in beaten egg yolk, then coat with bread crumbs.

  3. Fry in butter or lard until nicely browned.

Serve

  1. Alternatively, serve cold directly from the 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.

  1. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Mace + buttertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,405 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Vinegar + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

Mace and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,405 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
Gelatinous connective tissue that softens during slow boiling, giving a tender, rich bite.
Pig's ears
Cartilage and skin that soften when boiled, giving a chewy, tender texture.
Vinegar
Acidity that preserves and sharpens the flavor of the pickling mixture.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned crust when fried in fat.
Beaten yolk of 1 egg
Acts as a binder so the bread crumbs stick to each piece.

The step that matters

Boil them slowly until tender. Connective tissue in feet and ears breaks down into gelatin only with long, gentle heat. Rapid boiling can toughen the meat and leave the skin and cartilage rubbery.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, egg, bread, butter):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, egg, bread, 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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