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Souse, or Pigs' Feet

A preserved dish of pig's feet simmered in a vinegar-based sauce with spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Souse, or Pigs' Feet

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the feet

  1. Clean the pigs' feet. Cover them with hot water. Boil slowly until the meat separates from the bones.

  2. Remove the feet with a skimmer. Place them in a stone jar. Discard the largest bones.

Make the pickle

  1. Heat the vinegar in a pot. Add bay leaves, cloves, cinnamon, salt, pepper, onion, and mace to the vinegar. Steep the mixture in the vinegar for 45 minutes without boiling.

  2. Remove any fat from the reserved boiling water. Add 1 quart of the reserved boiling water to the vinegar mixture, adjusting for strength. Strain the liquid to remove spices.

Pickle and rest

  1. Pour the strained liquid over the meat in the jar, mixing thoroughly. Set the jar in a cold place for 2 days until ready to use.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Cinnamon + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,890 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  5. Cinnamon + macetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 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
Supply the meat and gelatinous body that become tender during slow boiling and pickling.
Strong vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the meat and gives the pickle its sharp flavor.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the pickle and helps draw flavor into the meat.
Whole cloves
Add warm, aromatic spice flavor to the pickling liquid.
Bay leaves
Contribute a subtle herbal aroma to the steeped vinegar.

The step that matters

Steep without boiling. Boiling the vinegar would drive off its aromatic volatile compounds and make the spices taste harsh or muddy, so the mixture should only steep at a gentle heat.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, clove, cinnamon, pepper, mace):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, clove, cinnamon, pepper, mace. 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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