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Neats Feet Soup

A soup made with neats feet, pickled pork, broth, lemon, herbs, gravy, wine, eggs, forcemeat balls, cayenne, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 14,037 recipes mention both. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Neats Feet Soup

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Cut the neats feet as you would a calf's head.

Cook

  1. In a stone jar, combine the neats feet, pickled pork, broth, lemon juice and rind, parsley, and herbs.

  2. Place the jar in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

Finish and serve

  1. Once removed from the oven, add the strong gravy, white wine, hard-boiled eggs, and forcemeat balls.

  2. Season with cayenne pepper and coarse sea salt.

  3. Cut the meat into bits.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Lemon + white winetop 11% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  5. Parsley + white winetop 15% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together2,890 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

What each ingredient does

Neat's feet
Collagen breaks down into gelatin during cooking, giving the soup body and a rich mouthfeel.
Pickled pork
Cured meat contributes salty, savoury flavour that seasons the whole soup.
Broth
Forms the liquid base that carries flavour and keeps the meat moist during cooking.
Strong gravy
Adds concentrated savoury depth and extra body to the finished soup.
White wine
Adds acidity and bright aromatic notes that balance the richness of the meat.
Lemon
Its juice and rind add acidity and fresh citrus aroma that lift the heavy broth.

The step that matters

Slow cooking in the jar. Neat's feet are rich in collagen, which needs long, gentle heat to convert into gelatin. Cooking too fiercely can leave the meat tough and the soup thin, so the jar should stay at a steady, even heat.

Flavor stand-ins for the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, lemon, white wine, egg, pepper):

  1. Thymeabout as good a flavor fit
  2. Marjoramabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Tarragonabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, lemon, white wine, egg, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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