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Soused

Pickled pig's feet and ears served with butter, mustard, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Soused

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the pigs' feet and ears thoroughly and soak them for several hours.

  2. Boil the feet and ears until tender.

Pickle

  1. Prepare a pickle with the boiling liquid, vinegar, and salt, then pour it over the feet and ears while cold.

Serve

  1. When ready to serve, dry the feet and ears, cut the feet in half, slice the ears, and fry them.

  2. Serve with butter, 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. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mustard + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + mustardtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,003 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Vinegar + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Pigs' feet
Provide gelatinous connective tissue that gives a tender, rich texture after boiling.
Pigs' ears
Provide gelatinous cartilage that turns tender when boiled and then firms up when pickled.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps preserve the pickled meat.
Flour
Helps form a dry coating that lets the pieces brown when fried.

The step that matters

Dry the feet and ears before frying. Surface moisture prevents browning and causes spattering in hot fat, so the pieces must be patted dry before they go into the pan.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, butter, flour):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Cucumberfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, butter, flour. 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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