No. 1784

Pigs' Feet-Broiled

Pieds de Cochon Grilles

If the feet have to be cooked at home, then clean them well and tie them together in pairs; boil them in a stock in which salted meats have been cooked, or else in a broth fragrant with vegetables, onions, carrots, a bunch of parsley garnished with thyme, basil etc., peppercorns, cloves and allspice; four or five hours will suffice to have them done properly, then let them cool off in the same liquid; unwrap and cut each foot into two parts; wet the surfaces with a brush dipped in butter or melted lard, pare and roll in bread-crumbs; broil them for fifteen to twenty minutes over a moderate fire.

← No. 1783 Pigs' Feet a la St. Menehould Pork No. 1785 Pigs Feet Truffled →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer assumes you can buy pigs' feet already cooked from a pork butcher and only tells you how to do it "at home" as a fallback. Today the long simmer is the whole job; the broiling is twenty minutes at the end.

Tie them, and keep the heat lowThe pairs are bound before cooking; the recipe does not say why. A gentle simmer rather than a hard boil helps keep the skin intact and the liquid clear, though the text itself says only to boil them.
Four or five hours is not an exaggerationThe foot is skin, cartilage and collagen. It is done when a skewer meets no resistance and the skin is on the point of slipping off the bone, which really does take four hours or more.
Cooling in the liquid is the hingeDo not lift them out hot. They must set in the cooking broth until cold, so the dissolved gelatin stiffens the interior and the halves hold their shape under the brush and the crumbs. The text gives no cooling time; chilling overnight is the safer course.
"Boil them in a stock in which salted meats have been cooked"That is the leftover liquid from boiling ham or corned beef, and it can be very salty. Taste it and cut it with water if needed, or use the aromatic broth alternative he gives: a broth with vegetables, onions, carrots, a parsley bundle with thyme and basil, peppercorns, cloves and allspice.
Pare, then crumb"Pare" here probably means to trim the split halves neat, removing loose skin and any protruding bone splinters, so the crumb coat sits evenly; its placement after the buttering leaves the sense uncertain. Brush with melted butter or lard and press dry fine crumbs on firmly; a second brush-and-crumb gives a better crust.
A moderate fireMedium coals, or an oven broiler with the rack set 6 to 8 inches from the element, not directly beneath it. The feet are already cooked through, so you are only browning the crumbs and warming the centre; too close and the coating blackens before the inside is hot.
Yield and serviceTwo halves, one foot, per person as a course. Mustard is the usual accompaniment, or a sauce Robert or piquante if you want something spooned; the recipe itself names none.

A Little History

This is No. 1784 of Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), the enormous record of his years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and it sits between two other treatments of the same cut, one a la Sainte-Menehould and one truffled. Broiled breaded pigs' feet are a French charcuterie standard, generally traced to the town of Sainte-Menehould in the Argonne, where the feet are cooked so long that even the small bones are said to become edible. The dish reached American hotel menus as part of the wholesale importation of French cooking after mid-century, and Ranhofer's opening clause is telling: it allows for the feet already being cooked, as though that were the ordinary starting point. The recipe is also a piece of thrift kept alive inside a luxury kitchen, using the salted-meat broth that would otherwise be thrown away to poach the cheapest part of the pig.