Skip to main content
Main

Modern Cookery

A hearty stew made from pigs' feet and ears simmered with vegetables, herbs, and rice flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Celery and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Modern Cookery

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Skim the water thoroughly when it first boils, then add salt, onions, celery, herbs, carrots, peppercorns, and mace.

  2. Stew gently until the pigs' feet and ears are tender.

  3. Remove the feet and ears, keeping the liquid simmering while you bone them.

  4. Return the bones to the liquid and stew gently for 1 hour.

  5. Strain the soup into a clean pan and let it cool overnight.

  6. Cut the meat into dice while warm and cover it with a cloth.

Make the soup

  1. To prepare the soup, clear the stock from fat and sediment.

  2. In a clean saucepan, bring the stock to a boil and stir in the rice flour mixed with cayenne, mace, and salt.

  3. Add lemon juice, Harvey's sauce, and sherry or Madeira, then simmer for 6-8 minutes.

  4. Adjust seasoning if needed, stir often, and skim thoroughly.

  5. Add the meat and herbs, boil gently for 5 minutes, then serve quickly.

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. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

  3. Celery + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

  4. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Pigs' feet
Release gelatin and body into the stock, giving it a rich, silky mouthfeel.
Ears
Add gelatin and chewy texture that thickens the stock as it cools.
Rice flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth body when it is brought to a boil.
Sherry or madeira
Adds sweetness and aromatic depth to the finished soup.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich stock.

The step that matters

Stirring the rice flour into the boiling stock. Rice flour clumps if dropped in unmixed or added to stock that is not boiling. Mixing it smoothly first and stirring while the stock boils lets the starch disperse and thicken evenly.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, celery, carrot, rice, flour, pepper, lemon):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, celery, carrot, rice, flour, pepper, 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.

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesRice FrittersRice Fritters84 recipes