braised chinese pig pork feet trotters stew

whatever you call it. i’m so tired of searching for its recipe so i compiled one myself from the youtube videos by expert village. they were trying to play some mind games with me by purposely breaking the video into many parts. i’m thankful nevertheless. it’s free.

Ingredients:

1) Pigs feet – 2 lb 2 oz (already cut in halves)
2) Soybean thread – 2
3) Dried shiitake mushrooms – 2-4 oz (try not to use the fresh ones, we need the aroma from the dried mushrooms)
4) Garlic – 6 cloves
5) Ginger – 2 oz
6) Lime leaves – 4 (optional)
7) Green onion – 3 stalks

Seasoning ingredients:

1) Salt – 1 tbsp
2) Brown sugar – 2 oz (if you can find the Chinese block/rock sugar, it is even better)
3) Chinese cooking wine – 1 tsp
4) Dark soy sauce – 1 tbsp
5) Light soy sauce – 1.5 tbsp
6) Oyster sauce – 1.5 tbsp
7) Zhu hou sauce (柱候酱) – 1.5 tbsp (it should be available in most Chinese grocery stores, if you cannot find it, you can use miso instead)
8. Fermented tofu – 1 cube (you usually buy them in a glass jar like pickles)

Preparations:

1) Precook the pig feet

• Point is, we have to simmer the pig feet until they are tender
• Large pot, fill it with water, bring to boil
• When it boils, add 2 considerably-thick slices of ginger and salt (to get rid of some kind of pig taste?)
• Add pig feet
• Close lid, lower temperature to 4 out of 10.
• Let it simmer for 1.5 hour.

2) Prepare shiitake mushrooms

• Soak them for 10-15 mins to soften, keep the water used to soak them to make braising liquid later.
• Cut off the stems, throw them away

3) Prepare ginger

• Peel/Scrape off the skin
• Cut them into considerably-thick slices

4) Prepare and deep-fry soybean threads

• 1 cup of cooking oil to deep-fry the soybean threads
• Since the soybean threads are too long to fit in the wok, break them considerably so that you can deep-fry them (They fry extremely fast so do one at a time. Do not fry for too long as they can become too tough. As soon as you see bubbles forming on it, take it out. Usually, it takes about 2 secs to fry one pieces.)
• Soak the deep-fried soybean threads in water for 15 mins to soften them again
• Cut them into pieces, 2 inches each

5) Drain the precooked pig feet

• After 1), drain the water from pot, because the water is fatty
• Rinse pig feet with cold water, to further get rid of fats
• Then, cut off the main bone from each piece
• Flip it, cut the feet in the middle. (It should be easy since you removed the main bone.)

6) Preparing seasoning mixture

• The 1 tbsp Salt in a bowl
• Add in the dark soy sauce, oyster sauce, fermented tofu cube
• Smash/break the tofu cube (no need too thorough)
• Add brown sugar
• Mix them well together

Cooking directions:

a) Heat the wok on high, add 2-3 tbsp cooking oil
b) Add half of green onion, all the ginger slices, all the garlic cloves, all lime leaves
c) Stir fry for a while – we want all these aromatic vegetables to release its flavor before we add the pig feet
d) After the aromatic vegetables are soft, we can add pig feet to wok
e) Give quick stir, the pig feet will absorb the aroma from the vegetables
f) Add Chinese cooking wine, shiitake mushrooms, zhu hao sauce
g) Continue stir fry all of them over high heat
h) Add in the seasoning mixture from Preparations 6)
i) Add 1.5 cup of braising liquid including the water user to soak the shiitake mushrooms (I guess it’s just water + the shiitake mushroom water)
j) Add in deep-fried soybean threads
k) Gently stir so everything is coated with the braising liquid in the wok
l) Close the lid
m) Let everything simmer for 30 mins over medium-low heat, 3.5/10

^The end.

It has a whole other section about how to serve it in a claypot. Very easy, just transfer them to the claypot!

But before that, you need to:

1) Heat the claypot on the stove with a little water in it.
2) Prepare 1 tsp of corn starch with 1 tsp of water, mix well.
3) Transfer pig feet into claypot
4) Pour in corn starch mixture into claypot little by little at different sides to prevent clumps

Then you get that last picture. Oh what happened to the other half of the green onion? Garnish.