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Pigs’ Feet and Ears Soused

A dish of boiled pig feet and ears pickled in vinegar and salt, then fried and served with butter, mustard, and vinegar.

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 ↓

Pigs’ Feet and Ears Soused

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

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

Boil and pickle

  1. Boil the pig's feet and ears until tender.

  2. Prepare a pickle using some of the boiling liquid, vinegar, and salt.

  3. Boil the pickle mixture.

  4. Pour the cold pickle over the boiled feet and ears.

Fry and serve

  1. Dry the feet.

  2. Cut the feet in half.

  3. Slice the ears.

  4. Fry the feet and ears until golden.

  5. Serve with butter, mustard, and vinegar on the side.

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
Their collagen gives body and a jellied texture as they cook and cool.
Pigs' ears
Cartilage and collagen make them chewy and firm after long simmering.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps preserve the pickled meat.

The step that matters

Fry the feet and ears until golden. The pieces must be dry and the fat hot, otherwise moisture steams the surface instead of browning it and the meat spatters.

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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