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Pigs’ Feet A-LA St. Manchaud

Pigs' feet are boiled, coated in butter, egg yolks, bread crumbs, parsley, and shallot, then broiled.

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 and boil

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

  2. Bind the halves with tape to prevent them from shrinking, then boil gently until soft.

Coat and broil

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

  2. Cover with bread crumbs, parsley, and minced shallot.

  3. 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 meat, which turns tender after gentle boiling.
Egg yolks
Bind the coating and help it adhere to the feet.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the crumbs brown under the broiler.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned crust on the outside.

The step that matters

Broil until browned. Broiling is brief and intense, so the crumb crust can scorch before it browns evenly. Watch closely and move the dish as needed so the surface colours without burning.

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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