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Pig's Feet and Ears Fricasseed

A fricassee of pig's feet and ears simmered in veal broth with onion, mace, and lemon peel, finished with cream, flour, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Pig's Feet and Ears Fricasseed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean and prepare the pig's feet and ears as directed.

  2. Cut the feet and ears into neat pieces.

Cook

  1. Boil them in milk until tender, then drain.

  2. Simmer the pieces in veal broth with onion, mace, and lemon peel.

Finish

  1. Before serving, stir in cream, flour, butter, and salt.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Pig's ears
Gelatinous connective tissue that turns tender and silky with long gentle cooking.
Pig's feet
Collagen-rich cuts that break down into gelatin, giving body and a rich mouthfeel.
Milk
Mild liquid that softens the meat during the first boil and adds a gentle dairy note.
Veal broth
Savoury liquid that simmers the pieces and forms the base of the sauce.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, smoothing the sauce and softening its flavour.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth sauce that clings to the pieces.

The step that matters

Stir in the flour, butter and cream before serving. Flour needs to be cooked into the hot liquid to thicken without lumps, and cream or butter added off the boil helps keep the sauce smooth rather than grainy or separated.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, veal, onion, lemon, cream, flour, butter):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, veal, onion, lemon, cream, flour, butter. 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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