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A Pig Matelote

A stew of pig quarters, bacon, wine, and aromatics, finished with a sauce of sweetbread, truffles, morels, mushrooms, and egg yolk or butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,973 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

A Pig Matelote

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the pig into four quarters and place in cold water.

  2. Cover the bottom of a stewpan with bacon slices.

  3. Layer the pig quarters, pettitoes, and head in the stewpan.

  4. Season with salt, pepper, bay leaf, thyme, and onion.

  5. Pour in the white wine and cover the stewpan.

Stew and strain

  1. Stew slowly for 1 hour.

  2. Skim fat from the gravy.

  3. Strain the gravy.

  4. In a separate pan, stew sweetbread, truffles, morels, and mushrooms until tender.

  5. Thicken the mixture with egg yolks or butter rolled in flour.

Serve

  1. Remove the pig from the stew and place it on a dish.

  2. Pour the sauce over the pig.

  3. Garnish with lemon and parsley.

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. Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

  4. Truffle + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,900 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  5. Thyme + mushroomtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Pig
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender as it stews slowly in wine.
White wine
Adds acidity and flavour to the stewing liquid, helping to build the sauce.
Bacon
Adds fat and smoky savour to the base of the stewpan as it cooks.
Egg yolks or butter rolled in flour
Thickens the strained gravy, giving it a smooth, rich body.
Sweetbread
Provides a tender, delicate meat that absorbs the savoury flavour of the sauce.
Mushrooms
Contribute earthy aroma and moisture to the sauce as they stew.

The step that matters

Thicken the mixture with egg yolks or butter rolled in flour. Egg yolks can curdle if the liquid is too hot, so the gravy should be thickened gently and not allowed to boil after the yolks are added.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, thyme, white wine, egg, truffle, mushroom, lemon):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, thyme, white wine, egg, truffle, mushroom, lemon. 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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