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Pigs' Feet Stewed

A stew of boiled pig's feet simmered with onions, spices, and a thickened gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,395 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pigs' Feet Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the feet

  1. Clean the pigs' feet.

  2. Boil the pigs' feet until tender, about 40 minutes.

  3. Cut the boiled feet into pieces.

Stew

  1. Place the pieces in a pot.

  2. Add enough hot water to cover the feet.

  3. Layer sliced onions at the bottom.

  4. Season with pepper, allspice, and coarse sea salt to taste.

  5. Stew for 30 minutes.

  6. Remove the gravy.

Thicken and serve

  1. Thicken the gravy with flour and butter.

  2. Add vinegar to taste.

  3. Pour the thickened gravy back over the feet.

  4. Boil for 10 minutes.

  5. Serve hot.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Allspice + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,302 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + allspicetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,270 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

Pigs' feet
Provide the main meat and collagen that softens into a rich, tender body during long cooking.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma to the stewing liquid as they soften and release flavour.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so it coats the feet instead of staying thin.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the gravy, smoothing its texture and flavour.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, fatty gravy.

The step that matters

Boil the feet until tender before stewing. Pigs' feet are rich in connective tissue that must be softened by long, moist heat to become tender. Undercooked feet stay tough and chewy even after stewing.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, allspice, flour, butter, vinegar):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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