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Soused Pig's Head and Feet

A pickled pig's head and feet served cold with mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lime and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,491 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Soused Pig's Head and Feet

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the pig's head and feet thoroughly.

  2. Boil the head and feet in water for 1 hour.

Souse and chill

  1. In a bowl, mix part of the boiling liquid with vinegar, lime or lemon juice, salt, cayenne, black pepper, and Jamaica pepper.

  2. Add the head and feet to the sauce, either cut or whole.

  3. Pour everything into a deep dish and let it cool.

  4. Serve cold with mustard and vinegar.

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. Lime + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,491 recipes

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

  2. Lime + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together392 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  5. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 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

Pig's head
Provides the main meat and gelatinous body of the dish.
Pig's feet
Release gelatin as they cook, helping the dish set firm when cooled.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavour and helps preserve the meat in the sauce.
Lime or lemon juice
Adds bright acidity that balances the richness of the pork.

The step that matters

Cooling the dish in the sauce. Pork cooled slowly in acidic liquid sets as the gelatin from the head and feet firms. Cooling too quickly or skipping the cold rest can leave the dish loose and under-seasoned, since the flavours need time to penetrate the meat.

“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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