Pig's Feet / Trotters / Pied de Cochon / Yikes

Finally cooked and ate the pig's feet last night. It was very interesting. Probably the most interesting cooking experience of my life.

Just to remind you, Amy and I got a half pig share from a local farm (New Roots Farm in Newmarket, NH). We got just about every piece of the pig, too, except for the tail and the head. So yes, the feet have been mocking me from our freezer for months. Complete with toenails/claws/whatever pigs have on their toes.

OK, for those out there who are thinking, hmm this is disturbing, I don't want any part in this; please leave this page! I'm going to show pictures of it ALL, and it was even kinda freaky for me. So you've been warned.

OK, only the tough stomached readers remain? Good.

So, I wanted to make the best of this uncommon cut of meat, and researched a bit. I found two recipes that seemed decent; one from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall for Chinese Style Pig's Trotters, which involves eating the feet whole as part of a noodley dish, and one from a blog called In Praise of Sardines, which was adapted from a French cookbook. It looked fancy and not at all like a pig's foot when the time came to serve it, so I went with the French style (sorry Hugh!).

So, here we go. Final warning: here come the pictures.

Seriously, the next picture shows the feet.

Ready?



Basically, you cook the feet three times. The first time is just to get things a little cleaner and get rid of some of that foam that forms (like when you make a stock). So you boil for five minutes and then replace the water. Here we are after this step:


Then you simmer for 3 hours in a nice aromatic bath. Onions, carrots, rosemary (thanks Mom), thyme, garlic, salt, pepper. I think that's it.


After 3 hours, everything has fallen apart nicely and you can work on getting some "meat" out of the feet. Everything was VERY sticky, making it extra disturbing for such an offal n00b like myself.


As I was warned by the blog with this recipe, there is little meat to be had, and you have to actually use some skin and other mystery substances within the feet to make this into a meal. I really don't know what specifically is in this bowl, except that none of it is bone:


Then I chopped things up nicely so I could mold them:


I used some cookie cutters and tried to make two stars, a gingerbread-type man, and a heart. These shapes didn't make it through cooking too well though. Refrigerated the packed "meat" overnight, though I don't now the reason.


Then breaded them on each side and fried in a little oil on each side.


Then I threw the pan in a preheated oven, for about 10 minutes. Meanwhile I put together a fruity barbecue-ish sauce, with ketchup, mustard, applesauce, apple cider vinegar, and other good stuff.


To serve, I topped with some diced apples (these were actually some dried out apples we had laying around, which I chopped up the night before and let sit in some water to reconstitute), and had some delicious and sweet chard and onions, and roasted beets and potatoes. The feet were actually REALLY GOOD! I was worried about two things ever since I started this process: texture and taste. And the texture was fine, mostly mushy with nice crunchy chewiness from the pan. The taste was astounding, really, which no doubt is partly due to the frying and accompanying sauce, but I tasted some of the foot bits on their own and it was a very full good taste with decent mouth feel.


BRIAN, HOW ABOUT THE SNOUT.

What I ate in Barcelona

Since I didn't take pictures of most of my meals while in Spain, I'm going to try and remember them all and write them out here. I ate so well!

I'll also give scores, just for fun, from 1-5 a la Netflix.

Friday/Saturday (flying):

• British Airways lasagna. Score: 2. Salty, ate fast, but airline food is airline food.
  
• British Airways mystery sandwich (can't rememeber). Score: 2. Wolfed down, hungry to stay awake, but it was a white mash of something mysterious, and the ratio of filling to bread was poor.
  
• British Airways cinnamon bun. Score: 3. A cheap small bun, but tasted correct.
  

Saturday:

• Catalonian Chickpea Soup. Score: 5! Very warm and probably nutritious. Ate in the old part of town at a small place with a special menu of seasonal foods.
  
• Hake (fish) with Sauteed Peppers. Score: 3... peppers were slimy and too soft, fish was breaded and boring. This was the only "nice" Spanish food restaurant I ate at, and there was a great atmostphere with all kinds of fish on display and cured meat hanging along the walls. Should've gotten meat! This picture shows an example of the meat, but it wasn't the same restaurant.
  

Sunday:

• Cinnamon raisin walnut bread (that I baked and brought), starbucks coffee. Score: 3. The bread was pretty dried out, and the coffee was OK (actually espresso mixed with water, so it tasted fine but was not punchy enough).

• 8 piece sushi sampler and miso soup. Score 4. Good, but not anything astounding about it. The miso seemed pretty authentic compared to others I've had though.

Monday:

• Hotel breakfast buffet; cafe con leche, scrambled eggs, sausage, baguettina slice, plum. Score: 4. Eggs were cooked in butter and salted nicely, making me kind of crazy about the simple ingredient.
• Turkish Kabob. Score: 5! I it was like a taco of meat and gooey goodness from the gods, spiced in a way I've never encountered before. Loved it!
• Baguette and water. Score: 4.5. This baguette was great, very interesting sweet taste and perfectly crusty.

Tuesday:

• Hotel breakfast buffet; cafe con leche, cantaloupe, some kind of whitebread, muffin, tomato juice (thought it was strawberry). Score 3.5. Nothing worth talking about.
• Paella! Score: 5! Incredibly good and worth seeking out. It was at an outdoor tent, set up for fast turnover for the customers, and it was just delicious. The rice was spiced in a new way for me, and the combination of sausage and mussels and shrimp was just awesome. And look at that great bread!
  

• Nepalese chicken tikka (I think) and something else kind of like korma that my boss got (we shared). Score: 5! Nepalese food is a lot like Indian food, so I went with what seemed to be more traditional for Nepal, based on the description: "Chicken cooked with special spices in a traditional Nepalese clay oven." It was very, very good. Spice and tange are the two main things I noticed most. The korma-esque dish was pretty much just like what I like to get in Indian places.

Wednesday:

• Hotel breakfast buffet: Tortilla espanola (spanish omelet), plum, creme filled croissant, cafe con leche, mango juice. Score: 4. A spanish omelet is like a solid mass of cooked egg and potato and vegetable, and it is good. The croissant was good and had the same filling as a Boston creme cake or doughnut.
  
• Baguettina sandwich, with a very sweet, red, cured meat, and a soft cheese. Score: 3.5. Actually pretty good, but didn't expect the sweetness. The baguette was too soft.

• Baguette with chocolates (brought the chocolates with me). Score: 3.5. I actually ate most of this after seeing Gaudi's Sagrada Familia and then walking to the Mediterranean coast. By the time it was night I was worn out and not hungry.

Thursday:

• Hotel breakfast buffet: Tortilla espanola, mango juice, chocolate croissant, an apple topped pastry, scrambled buttery eggs. Score: 4. All delicious.
• Espresso from the Skype booth. Score: 3. First straight espresso experience, and it was intense.

• Duck confit with bok choy and daikon. Score: 5! This was at a restaurant in the city called "Me" and it was very modern and hip. We got there at 8:30pm and they weren't even open yet. There was a wall of lamps with lampshades, and each one was wearing a tie. Say what? The host dude was very friendly and cool, sat down with us at our table to take our orders, and referred to us as "Boston" for the rest of the evening. The restaurant advertised itself as a fusion between: Saigon + New Orleans + Barcelona. Thus the French confit style joining up with the Asian vegetables... in... Barcelona, anyways. The duck was much less slimy than when I got a confit in Montreal, so that was actually quite a pleasant surprise.

Friday:

• Cinnamon raisin walnut bread in my hotel room at 4am with water. Score: 2. Too dry, not hungry!
  
• Organic cafe con leche and a Kinder Bueno bar at the Barcelona airport. Score 3.5. Good, but pathetic.

• British Airways salmon sandwich. Score: 2. Yeah, SURE there was salmon in there.
• British Airways chicken tikka, etc. Score 4. I was very hungry at this point and ate it all so fast. I was in the 2nd level of seating, so I had some leg room and there was no one next to me, so for once eating airline food was more personal and I was less dainty. Pretty good, really, despite how lame it looked.

• British Airways chicken salad sandwich. Score: 3. I haven't yet had a chicken salad sandwich worth talking about.

Friday in Kittery with Amy!

• Moxie and Bourbon BBQ steak tips, with mashed potatoes and sauteed vegetables. Blueberry bread pudding for dessert. Score: 5! Maine food done very right. Amy had a paella that was very tasty, albeit much different than what I had in Spain.

BRIAN OUT.