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Pigs Feet and Ears

A dish of braised pigs' feet and ears, coated in egg and breadcrumbs, then fried until crisp.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Pigs Feet and Ears

Ingredients

Directions

Braise

  1. Braise the pigs' feet and ears in a brown braise until tender, allowing bones to pull out easily.

  2. Shred the ears finely and mix with rober sauce.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip the feet in beaten egg, then coat with bread crumbs mixed with parsley, thyme, shallot, pepper, and salt.

  2. Repeat the egg and bread crumb coating for extra crispiness.

  3. Clarify butter in a sauté pan and heat.

  4. Fry the coated pigs' feet until they are a nice light brown.

Serve

  1. Arrange the shredded ears on a dish first, then place the feet around them like cutlets.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  5. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Pigs' feet
Gelatinous connective tissue turns tender and rich during long braising, giving body to the meat.
Pigs' ears
Collagen-rich cartilage softens during braising, giving the shredded meat a tender, gelatinous texture.
Egg
Binds the bread crumb coating so it adheres to the feet and crisps when fried.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden-brown crust when fried in butter.
Butter for frying
Conducts heat for even frying and adds browning and a rich flavor to the crust.

The step that matters

Fry the coated pigs' feet until light brown. The coating needs enough heat to brown and crisp without burning. Moderate heat in clarified butter browns the crumbs evenly while the meat inside stays warm. Clarified butter has no milk solids to scorch, so it tolerates the heat better than whole butter.

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, bread, parsley, thyme, pepper, butter):

  1. Shallotthe original
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Carrotfits less well
  4. Chivefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, bread, parsley, thyme, pepper, 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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