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Pigs' Pettitoes

A dish of boiled pig's pettitoes served with a gravy of heart, liver, and lights, with flour, butter, wine, egg yolk, cream, nutmeg, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Pigs' Pettitoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meats

  1. Boil the pettitoes until tender.

  2. Boil the heart, liver, and lights for about 10 minutes.

  3. Chop them small.

Make the sauce

  1. Thicken the gravy with flour and butter.

  2. Add the minced meat, white wine, and a little salt.

  3. Bring to a gentle boil.

  4. Beat the egg yolk with cream and grated nutmeg. Stir it into the mixture.

  5. Heat gently without boiling.

Serve

  1. Place sippets in a dish. Pour the mixture over.

  2. Garnish with sliced lemon.

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. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. White wine + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg yolk
Thickens the cream sauce gently and gives it richness when heated carefully.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so it coats the meats instead of running thin.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the gravy and helps carry flavour.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the sauce.
White wine
Adds acidity that brightens the rich meat and cream flavours.

The step that matters

Heat gently without boiling. Once egg yolk is stirred in, high heat can scramble it and cause the sauce to curdle. Keeping it below a simmer keeps the sauce smooth and creamy.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, flour, butter, white wine, egg, cream, nutmeg):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Vanillafits about as well
  4. Applefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, flour, butter, white wine, egg, cream, nutmeg. 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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