recipe: alubias blancas con manitas de cerdo - white beans with knuckle of pork

First things first: what a dish!

When I called in to see if I could buy a few pig trotters earlier in the week, the boys at Westmere Butcher joked, “a dozen Steinlagers & you can have as many as you like!” Not a big seller then? No surprises there, I suppose… more’s the pity.

My introduction to pig’s trotters was a dish I stumbled upon searching through my great grandmother’s recipe book, written in a hand so illegible I could barely read it – the result of the nuns strapping her writing hand to the desk as a child, for she was left handed & to be so was the mark of the devil! Good old Irish Catholic discipline. Hard to believe.

But I digress…

The dish, just as old fashioned, was for lamb’s tongue set in jelly, the pig’s trotter providing the source of gelatine. It was delicious. It was also an introduction to an ingredient that has continued to hold my fascination as a cook ever since.

In the early 90’s Marco Pierre White immortalized in his revolutionary White Heat (Octopus Publishing Group, 1990) “Braised Pig’s Foot Pierre Koffmann”. I was a young cook at cooking school & remember turning page after page in awe. Introducing this dish,  ‘It’s simple & earthy, but it’s also elegant & intelligent,’ Marco writes. ‘It’s not a recipe for talking about; it’s a meal to be eaten.’ ...but again, I digress…

I just love cooking food like this. Taking an ingredient like a pig’s trotter & transforming it into something delicious is, for me, what the art of cookery is about. It’s why I cook. It’s true pleasure & the result is pleasure on a plate.

Ingredients:

1 litre chicken stock           

1 cup canelinni beans, soaked in water overnight

2 bay leaves / 4 or 5 peppercorns

6 pigs trotters

a little butter/olive oil

2 whole onions / 4 cloves garlic                 

1tspoon smoked paprika                 

a squeeze of tomato puree / 2 ripe tomatoes

2 shots cognac 

recipe: stage1: the trotters

*trotters in a pot of cold water, bring to boil, drain (to draw out impurities)

*repeat in salted water with 4 or 5 peppercorns & two bay leaves, bring to boil & lower to a simmer for an hour.

*stand to cool (overnight in the fridge, this stock will set to jelly) 

*remove the central bones, but reserve knuckles with all that connective tissue, & the little meaty bits in there.

*also reserve the broth boil.

             recipe: stage2: the beans

*soak the beans overnight, drain the next day

*cover beans in chicken stock, add a bay leaf, bring to boil & simmer until the beans have lost their crunch but are still firm, anywhere round an hour

recipe: stage3: the sofrito

*salt the onions & garlic, sauté in butter & olive oil on a low heat, cover the pan & cook until the onions are translucent & sweet to the taste (I like to toss in some fresh thyme & finely chop some parsley stalks in there for flavour)

*I like to add a chopped carrot to the sofrito, cooking out with onions/garlic

*squeeze in the tomato puree, cook it out for a few minutes until it begins to caramelize, then add the fresh tomato, skinned/deseeded/chopped up so that you have a lovely sweet, base

*add paprika then add a splash of brandy, ignite when it begins to evaporate

recipe: stage4: bringing it all together

*add to the pan the scraps of bone/meat, move the pan about for 10 mins

*add the beans, with some of the stock

*continue cooking, covered, for a while taking care not to stick or burn

tip: if it solidifies on cooling, do not worry because it loosens again when heated take to the previous texture.

tip: If you have small hairs on the trotters, remove with a flame, do not leave even one hair. Rinse after "shave"

tip: for a meatier stew, add a hock or two with trotters at initial cooking stage

tip: this is as delicious as a stew or a soup, the amount of liquid is entirely down to preference - chicken/pork stock for flavour