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Pigs Feet and Ears

A dish of braised pig feet and ears coated in egg and breadcrumbs, served with shredded ears.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 pig feet and ears in a brown sauce until tender, allowing bones to pull out easily.

  2. Shred the ears finely and mix the shredded ears with brown sauce.

Coat

  1. Dip the pig feet in beaten eggs.

  2. Coat the pig feet with bread crumbs mixed with parsley, thyme, mushrooms, shallot, pepper, and salt.

  3. Repeat the egg and bread crumb coating process.

Cook and serve

  1. Clarify butter in a sauté pan.

  2. Place the pig feet in the clarified butter and cook on the stove until they are a nice light brown.

  3. Arrange the shredded ears on a dish first, then place the pig feet around the shredded ears 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

Pig feet
Provide tender meat and gelatinous body that holds together when braised and coated.
Pig ears
Add gelatin and a chewy texture that thickens the shredded mixture with the sauce.
Eggs
Bind the bread crumb coating to the pig feet so it adheres during cooking.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp outer layer that browns in the butter.
Butter
Conducts heat and browns the coated pig feet in the pan.

The step that matters

Cook the coated pig feet in clarified butter until light brown. Clarified butter has no milk solids to burn, so it can reach frying heat and brown the crumb coating evenly. Cooking too hot or too long can scorch the crumbs before the coating sets.

“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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