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Modern Cookery

A hearty soup 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) · 16 ingredients
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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

Prepare the broth

  1. Skim the boiling water thoroughly.

  2. Add salt, onions, celery, herbs, carrots, peppercorns, and mace.

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

  4. Remove the feet and ears, keeping the broth simmering.

  5. Bone the feet and ears, then return the bones to the broth and simmer for 1 hour.

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

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

  8. Remove fat and sediment from the stock.

Thicken and finish

  1. Heat the stock in a clean saucepan.

  2. Mix rice flour with cayenne, mace, and salt.

  3. Stir the mixture into the boiling stock.

  4. Add lemon juice, Harvey's sauce, and sherry or Madeira.

  5. Simmer for 6-8 minutes.

  6. Adjust seasoning.

  7. Stir often.

  8. Skim the soup.

  9. Add the meat and herbs.

  10. Boil gently for 5 minutes.

  11. Serve quickly with forcemeat and egg balls if desired.

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 as they simmer, giving the broth body and a rich mouthfeel.
Rice flour
Thickens the stock when stirred into boiling liquid, giving it a smooth body.
Sherry or madeira
Adds acidity and fortified wine aroma that brighten the rich broth.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the richness of the broth.
Celery
Adds savory aromatic flavour to the stock as it simmers.

The step that matters

Stirring the rice flour into the boiling stock. Flour added to hot liquid can clump if not whisked in well. Stirring the mixture in gradually, while the stock boils, keeps it smooth and lets the starch 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.

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