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Pigs’ Feet a LA St. Manchaud

A dish of boiled pigs' feet coated with butter, egg yolk, bread crumbs, parsley, and shallot, then broiled until browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Pigs’ Feet a LA St. Manchaud

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the feet

  1. Clean the pigs' feet and cut them in half.

  2. Bind the halves with tape to prevent shrinking.

Cook and coat

  1. Boil gently until soft.

  2. Remove the tape and dip the feet in melted butter and egg yolks.

  3. Cover with bread crumbs, parsley, and shallot.

Finish

  1. Broil until browned.

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. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Shallot + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Bread + shallottop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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 body of the dish, becoming tender when gently boiled.
Egg yolks
Bind the butter and help the coating adhere to the feet.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the crumbs brown under the broiler.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust once broiled.
Shallot
Adds a mild, aromatic onion flavour to the crumb coating.

The step that matters

Broil until browned. The crumb coating can burn quickly under high direct heat while the surface is still pale. Watch closely and stop when golden, since the butter and crumbs brown fast.

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter, bread, parsley, pepper):

  1. Shallotthe original
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Carrotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, bread, parsley, pepper. 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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