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Soused Pig's Feet

A dish of boiled pig's feet served with a vinegar-based sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Soused Pig's Feet

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the feet

  1. Scald and clean the pig's feet, then wash them.

  2. Boil the feet in enough water to cover them, adding 2 teaspoons of coarse sea salt per quart of water.

  3. Cook until the bones are loose and the flesh is nearly falling apart.

  4. Remove the feet and let them cool on a dish, saving the cooking liquid.

Make the souse and serve

  1. Mix equal parts of the cooking liquid and sharp vinegar, adding whole allspice, cloves, pepper, and salt to taste.

  2. Heat the vinegar mixture and pour it over the cooled feet.

  3. Serve cold or reheat with some of the vinegar mixture.

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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Vinegar + allspicetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,548 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  5. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Pig's feet
Main protein; the collagen-rich bones and skin turn gelatinous and tender when simmered for a long time.
Sharp vinegar
Provides the acidity that sharpens the flavor and defines the pickled, souse character of the dish.
Whole allspice
Adds warm, aromatic spice notes to the vinegar mixture that soak into the feet.

The step that matters

Cooking until the bones are loose. The feet must simmer long enough for collagen in the bones and skin to break down into gelatin. Stopping early leaves the meat tough and the bones firmly attached.

“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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