Pork trotters require special attention when cooking. They need to be cleaned, parboiled, and can be prepared in various ways. Chefs use tricks like singeing the meat to remove hair and boiling in milk or vinegar to remove unpleasant flavors. Leaving the meat on the bone adds flavor and gelatin to stews and soups. Overcooking should be avoided.
Pork trotters, which are the feet and hocks of a pig, can be prepared in a number of ways, but sometimes they require special attention. One of the most important things to do before cooking pig trotters is to clean them to make sure they are free of hair, blood and other unwanted elements. Nearly all recipes cook the pork trotters in two stages as well, with the first being parboiled to tenderize the meat, tone down the flavor of the offal, and loosen the collagen and other tissue within the cut. The actual methods of creating a meal from the trot range from preparing thick stews to deep-fried bits of meat and vary widely from one country to another. There are some labor-intensive recipes for pork trotters, such as making a French-style terrine with meat that can be flaked onto a plate for an interesting presentation.
Some chefs use a few tricks to prepare pork trotters for cooking. An effective method of making sure there are no stray hairs on the trotters’ skin is to singe the meat briefly over an open flame. This will cause the hairs to catch fire and burn quickly, although the flesh must be washed after this procedure. Trotters are usually boiled in water for 10 to 30 minutes to draw out the blood and remove any unpleasant flavors that may be stored in the skin and collagen. Another way to make the taste milder is to soak the trotters in milk or a mild vinegar mixture.
The first step in most pork trotter recipes is to boil the meat in fresh water after it has been cleaned. This cooks the meat and loosens the tissues inside so they can be butchered more easily or broken down more easily in liquid. Flavoring the water with herbs such as thyme, sage or rosemary and flavorings such as onions and celery can impart flavor to the trotters before the main spices are applied.
When cooking pork trotters, it’s best to leave the meat on the bone when preparing it in a stew or soup, because the bone will provide some depth of flavor and help the gelatin in the meat thicken the cooking liquid. Alternatively, for drier dishes, the meat is usually removed from the bone so that it can be handled and ultimately served and consumed more easily. When taking the meat off the bone, it is up to the chef to determine if the collagen and other tissue is also being removed and used. In most cases, pork trotters should be almost cooked through when parboiling, which means the meat shouldn’t cook for long in whichever cooking method you follow. Overcooked trotterer meat can be tough, dry on the inside, and unpleasantly greasy on the outside.
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