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Pigs' Ears Oreilles De Cochons Cn Menu-de-Roi

Pigs' ears simmered with onions, espagnole sauce, beef juice, mustard, vinegar, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Pigs' Ears Oreilles De Cochons Cn Menu-de-Roi

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ears

  1. Singe the pigs' ears to remove hairs and scrape them well.

  2. Wash the ears in several waters.

  3. Blanch and cook the ears in a braise until done.

  4. Let the ears cool, then cut them into equal fillets.

Make the onion sauce

  1. Slice the onions into fillets or half-rings, removing the head, tail, and heart.

  2. Melt a bit of butter in a stew-pan.

  3. Add the onions and cook without browning.

  4. Moisten the onions with espagnole sauce and beef juice, then let them simmer.

  5. Skim the mixture.

Finish and serve

  1. Just before serving, add the pigs' ears, salt, mustard, and vinegar to taste.

  2. Serve the dish 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. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  2. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  3. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sauce + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,120 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Pigs' ears
Provide the main meat, which is cooked tender in a braise and then cut into fillets.
Butter
Fat for cooking the onions gently in the pan, adding richness and flavour.
Onions
Form the base of the dish, softening into a sweet, mellow body in the sauce.
Espagnole sauce
Brown-sauce base that gives the dish body, depth and a rich savoury flavour.
Beef juice
Adds concentrated meaty savour to the sauce that the onions simmer in.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce and balances its savouriness.

The step that matters

Cook the onions without browning. Browned onions turn bitter and darken the sauce, while gently softened onions stay sweet and mild. Keeping the heat low lets them release sugars slowly without caramelising.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, onion, sauce, beef, vinegar):

  1. Mustardthe original
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Shallotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, sauce, beef, 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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