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Soused

A pickled and fried dish of pig feet and ears seasoned with vinegar, salt, butter, and mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Soused

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and pickle

  1. Clean the pigs' feet and ears carefully and soak them for several hours.

  2. Boil them until tender.

  3. Prepare a pickle with the boiling liquid, vinegar, and salt; boil it and pour it over the feet and ears while cold.

Fry and serve

  1. When ready to serve, dry the feet and ears, cut the feet in half, slice the ears, and fry them.

  2. Serve with butter, mustard, and vinegar on the side. Optionally, dip in batter or coat with flour before frying.

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. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mustard + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + mustardtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,003 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Vinegar + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

Butter and flour 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

Pigs' feet
Collagen softens during long boiling and turns to gelatin, giving the pickle body and a silky mouthfeel.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the pickle's flavor and balances the rich meat and fat.
Batter or flour
Forms a coating that browns and crisps when fried, giving a crunchy contrast to the tender meat.
Butter
Adds fat and richness that rounds out the sharp pickle and mustard.

The step that matters

Drying the feet and ears before frying. Surface moisture from the pickle turns to steam in hot fat, causing spattering and steaming instead of browning. Patting the pieces dry first lets the surface sear and crisp.

Swap the mustard

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, butter, flour. 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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