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Pieds De Mouton an Sauce Robert

Sheep's feet cooked with onion, butter, stock, mustard, vinegar, and seasoned cullis, served with a thick sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Pieds De Mouton an Sauce Robert

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the onion and place it in a stewpan with butter.

  2. Cook the onion until it is half done.

Make the sauce and cook

  1. Add the cut trotters and moisten with stock and seasoned cullis.

  2. Once cooked, stir in mustard and vinegar.

Serve

  1. Serve with a thick sauce.

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. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sauce + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,120 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Sheep's trotters
Provide the main protein, which becomes tender and gelatinous as they cook slowly in liquid.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps soften the onion without browning it.
Onion
Adds sweetness and savoury depth as it softens in the butter.
Cullis (thick sauce)
Thickens the cooking liquid and gives the dish its body and flavour.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that balances the richness of the sauce.

The step that matters

Stir in mustard and vinegar after cooking. Acid and heat-sensitive pungent flavours fade or turn harsh if overcooked, so adding them near the end keeps the sauce bright and balanced.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Radishfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sauce, mustard, vinegar. 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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