Name: Pieds De Mouton a l'Anglaise — Sheeps Trotters
Ingredients: 12 sheep's trotters, previously boiled; 2 cups stock; 1 tablespoon vinegar; Salt to taste; Pepper to taste; 2 slices onions; 1 clove garlic, minced; 1 carrot or turnip, sliced; Crumb of bread, cut to size of bones and fried in butter

Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Pieds De Mouton a l'Anglaise — Sheeps Trotters

Ingredients

Directions

Braise

Place the boiled trotters in a stewpan with stock, vinegar, salt, pepper, onions, garlic, and carrot or turnip.
Boil for 30 minutes until well done, then remove the bones.

Fill and serve

Fill each trotter with a piece of fried bread in place of the bones.
Serve with a piquant 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.

Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together29,058 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together17,451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Clove + carrottop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,873 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,555 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together21,601 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

Sheep's trotters: Provide the main body of the dish, becoming tender and gelatinous as they cook.
Stock: Supplies the cooking liquid that softens the trotters and carries savoury flavour.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the rich, fatty flavour of the trotters.
Bread: Fills the space left by the removed bones, with butter helping it brown and taste rich.

The step that matters

Boiling until well done before removing the bones. Trotters need a long, gentle simmer so collagen breaks down into gelatin and the meat becomes tender. If they are pulled too early, the meat stays tough and the bones are hard to remove cleanly.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, pepper, onion, garlic, carrot, bread, butter):

Parsleyfits better
Thymefits better
Marjoramfits better
Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, pepper, onion, garlic, carrot, bread, butter. 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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Pieds De Mouton a l'Anglaise — Sheeps Trotters