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A Pig Matelote

A hearty stew of pig quarters, sweetbread, truffles, and mushrooms simmered in wine and thickened with egg yolks or butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

A Pig Matelote

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pig

  1. Cut the pig into four quarters and place them in cold water with the head and pettitoes.

  2. Cover the bottom of a stewpan with bacon slices and arrange the pig quarters, pettitoes, and head on top.

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

Stew and make the sauce

  1. Cover and stew slowly for 1 hour.

  2. Remove the pig and set aside.

  3. In the same pot, add white wine and the first gravy, skim off fat, and strain.

  4. Add sweetbread, truffles, morels, and mushrooms to the gravy and cook until tender.

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

Serve

  1. Serve the pig on a dish, pour the sauce over it, and garnish with 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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

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

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

  3. White wine + mushroomtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  4. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Lemon + white winetop 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

Pig
Provides the meat that is stewed slowly until tender and releases flavour into the gravy.
Bacon
Its fat and smoky savour season the stewing base and the gravy beneath the meat.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce and give it a smooth, rich body as they set gently with heat.
White wine
Adds acidity that brightens the gravy and balances the richness of the meat and fat.
Sweetbread
Contributes a soft, creamy texture to the sauce as it cooks until tender.
Truffles, morels, and mushrooms
Add earthy aroma and deep savoury flavour to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Skimming the fat before adding the wine. Fat left in the gravy stays liquid and can make the sauce greasy and cloudy. Removing it before thickening keeps the sauce clean and smooth.

Swap the onion

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

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

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