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Sheeps' Trotters Fried

A dish of sheep's trotters fried in a batter after stewing with vegetables and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Sheeps' Trotters Fried

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the trotters

  1. Clean the sheep's trotters and scald them in hot water.

  2. Stew the trotters in the same sauce used for boiling calf's head, then bone them.

Make the sauce

  1. In a pan, melt butter and fry the chopped carrots, onions, parsley roots, thyme, shallot, bay leaf, and clove until they begin to color.

  2. Moisten the vegetables with equal parts water and vinegar, and stew until tender.

  3. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt, then strain the mixture over the trotters.

Batter and fry

  1. In a bowl, mix flour, a pinch of salt, olive oil, and enough beer or water to form a batter.

  2. Add the beaten egg whites to the batter and mix well.

  3. Dip the trotters into the batter and fry them immediately.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  4. Thyme + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sheeps' trotters
Provide the meat that is cooked, boned, and coated in batter for frying.
Flour
Forms the batter that coats the trotters and crisps when fried.
Egg whites
Whipped into the batter to add lightness and help it puff when fried.
Butter
Enriches the vegetable base and adds flavour through gentle browning.
Onions
Caramelise lightly in butter to build the savoury, sweet base of the sauce.

The step that matters

Dip the trotters into the batter and fry them immediately. Batter begins to set and lose its lift once it sits, so frying right away keeps the coating light and crisp rather than heavy and greasy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, carrot, parsley, thyme, shallot, clove, pepper):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, carrot, parsley, thyme, shallot, clove, pepper. 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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