Wednesday, April 30, 2014

332/984 - Chinese-style trotters with ginger and black rice vinegar

It was piggy feet for dinner in our house tonight! 

I had quite a busy day planned and so I made a quick dash to the local organic grocer this morning for a pile of ginger which was to be used to flavour this lovely recipe. Stephanie mentioned that the taste of ginger in the finished product could be alarmingly strong for some people and so I reduced the amount from 500 grams to 350 just in case.

I used a tip that was kindly shared recently by a fellow foodie, Miss Food Fairy, which was to use a spoon rather than a peeler to remove the skin from the ginger. It rubs away very easily and certainly saves a lot of waste. Thanks Miss Food Fairy for that one!

I actually had to boil this quite hard for the final two hours to ensure the liquid reduced into a lovely rich syrup. I even transferred the trotters into a wider saucepan for the final thirty minutes to encourage the reduction of fluid. Needless to say, my kitchen was a crazy big mess by the time tonight's dinner was complete. Thankfully I had a couple of helpful small boys by my side for the horrendous clean up. 

We all loved this dish, and according to the lovely lady at Terra Madre, the source of my ginger and other lovely vegetables, it was very good for us too. Who knew that cooking cartilage would be beneficial to the health of our own cartilage. If my boys grow old without a sign of arthritis perhaps we can thank my love of cooking trotters for that. 

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