I promised you guys more recipes with offals this year and I intend to deliver on my promise early. This recipe for pig’s feet with chorizo, tomatoes and green papdi beans was a revelation for me when I made it the first time round. Since then I’ve made it twice again to perfect the recipe. It’s super simple to make and involves a bit of pressure cooking, before you get to the slow-cooking bit. Concentrating all that sinful flavour by cooking it slowly gives you a deep, smoky, rich stew to mop up with lots of pao.
When buying pig’s feet or pork paya/trotters, ask your butcher to get all the hair off the skin because once you’re home, singeing it off is a pain, and picking up a razor to shave the hair makes me super queasy for some odd reason. When cooking trotters, you want to cook them till they are fall-off-the-bone tender. That’s how I like them. Another way of cooking pork trotters once they have been pressure-cooked, is to combine it in a diluted braise of oyster sauce, rice wine, chilli oil, and cook it low and slow. Finish with some boiled eggs and serve.
The tomatoes in this recipe are the souring agent which as we know, pork really likes. You could also use vinegar in addition to the tomato if you enjoy a more sour final result. Feel free to swap the papdi beans for any other seasonal beans. Be sure to remember that the sourness only becomes more pronounced when the dish is left to stand overnight, and so it tastes better the next day.
Pork Trotters and Papdi Beans
Yield 4-6
Trotters are a breeze to cook if you have a pressure cooker at home. Once the cooker has done it's job, it's a simple bung and forget operation. This sinful, sticky stew of pork and beans is delicious with fresh pao.
Ingredients
Pork trotters 5-6, any hair trimmed. Ask the butcher.
Papdi beans 600g, washed
Onions 2 large, chopped finely
Garlic 1 full head, peeled
Goan Chorizo 200g, pinched out of their cases
Tomato puree 1/2 tetra pack
Olive oil 2 tsp
Bay leaf 1
Red Chillies 2-3 (not bird’s eye), slit lengthwise and chopped
Coriander a small handful, chopped roughly
Salt
Instructions
Wash the trotters thoroughly and check for any hair. Salt the trotters and set them aside for at least two hours. After two hours, rinse the salt off the trotters and begin by adding the trotters to a pressure cooker with the bay leaf. Fill the cooker with water till it rises just above the trotters. Close the cooker and let the trotters cook on high pressure for about 30 minutes.
After 30 minutes, let the pressure release by itself. Once the cooker is open, check for any impurities that have risen to the surface and skim them away. You may also choose to strain this water and continue with the next step. To this water, add in the garlic cloves, the finely chopped onions, chorizo, beans, chillies and half of the chopped coriander. Let everything cook on medium-high heat, reducing merrily for 45 minutes to an hour, or until the fatty bits around the legs of the trotters begins to pull back.
At this stage, add in the tomato puree, a drizzle of olive oil and give everything a good stir. Let it continue to cook for 10 more minutes or until the raw tomatoey taste has gone. Salt the dish right at the end. Finish with the reserve coriander.
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