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Pigs’-feet a LA St. Manchaud

A braised dish of pigs' feet coated in butter, egg yolk, breadcrumbs, 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

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

  2. Bind the pigs' feet with tape to prevent shrinking.

  3. Boil the pigs' feet gently until soft.

  4. Remove the tape from the pigs' feet.

Coat and broil

  1. Dip the pigs' feet in melted butter and egg yolks.

  2. Cover the pigs' feet with bread crumbs, parsley, and shallot.

  3. Broil the pigs' feet 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 and gelatinous body of the dish.
Egg yolks
Bind the coating so the crumbs stick to the pigs' feet.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the coating brown under the broiler.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned crust on the outside.

The step that matters

Boil the pigs' feet gently until soft. Boiling too hard can break the skin and cause uneven cooking, while gentle heat softens the connective tissue slowly. Pigs' feet must be fully tender before coating, because the broiler only browns the surface and will not soften the meat.

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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