Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Fried Pigs' Feet
Ingredients
Directions
Batter and fry
Make a batter with flour, water, salt, and the egg.
Dip the pigs' feet in the batter to cover them.
Heat the fat until hot and fry the feet until they are brown.
Serve
Prepare drawn butter and mix in the vinegar to serve with the feet.
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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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Butter + vinegartop 23% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together13,513 recipes
Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
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Flour + vinegartop 27% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,652 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
- Flour
- Forms the base of the batter and gives the coating its structure as it cooks.
- Egg
- Binds the batter and helps it set and brown as it fries.
- Fat for frying
- Transfers heat to the batter, crisping and browning the coating.
- Butter
- Adds richness and a rounded flavour to the serving sauce.
- Vinegar
- Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour of the rich butter.
The step that matters
Frying in hot fat. The fat must be hot before the battered feet go in. If it is too cool, the batter soaks up oil instead of crisping quickly, leaving the coating greasy and pale. Frying at the right heat seals the batter fast, so it browns and stays crisp.
“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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