Pig trotter or we may see it as pig feet is considered as one of the most delicious parts on pig. Additionally, the rich collagen contained in pig trotter makes it as a popular beauty food in China. If you are patient enough, you can even try to make collagen mask from pig trotter.
There are many recipes about trotter for example pig trotter soup with soy beans. This red braised pig trotter is also excellent. Pig shoulder can be used to replace pig trotter in this recipe. As for the treatment of pig trotter, be patient with the pig hair if there is any because it may influence the appetite a lot, or you can ask the batcher to help with that.
Besides, I want to introduce red braising a little bit more. In Chinese cooking methods, braising is a common and popular method. Red braising or sometimes known as red cooking, from its name, we know that the basic cooking method is braising but the color of the food should be red. The key step of red braising dishes is to make the red oil color via oil and sugar, however sometimes people use soy sauce as coloring when they do not want brother to do that. Generally crystal sugar is used for making the red color. We call this process as stir frying the sugar color. I have introduced the detailed steps and tips in this red braised pork belly also known as Hong Shao Rou. If you do not want to stir fry the sugar color, just add sugar along with soy sauce in clay pot. This method only sacrifice the color slightly but do not influence the taste.
For red braised meat recipes, it is import to guarantee the cooking time. I recommend cooking for at least 2 hours. Since it is a long time, you may use slow cooker or electric cooker to save time. I use high pressure to cook the pig trotter until almost soft, which cost 30 minutes and then red braise in a clay pot this time. It is ok to use a common pot or a wok or even a sauce pan. This version can be the most easy version.
Another tip is that do not add salt at the very beginning because this may destroy the taste of the meat and make it chewy.
- 2 pig trotters , remove the hair and cut into bite size chunks (resort to batcher)
- 1/2 tablespoon ginger slices
- water as needed
- 1 green onion
- 5 Sichuan peppercorn
- 2 tablespoons cooking wine
- 1 tablespoon crystal sugar
- 1 tablespoon cooking oil
- 2 Dried chili pepper
- 5 ginger slices
- 2 green onion
- 1/2 teaspoon Sichuan peppercorn
- 2 bay leaves
- 1/2 tablespoon star anise
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon light soy sauce
- 1 teaspoon dark soy sauce
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Cut trotter into small sections. Rinse the pig trotter in clean and boiling water. Remove all the hair carefully. Put aside and drain.
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Bring water to a boil in a large pot and cook the pig trotter for 2-3 minutes. Transfer out and wash under running water. This process can help to remove the odd taste as much as possible. And then in a high pressure cooker or electric cooker or a pot, cover pig trotter with enough water, add ginger slices, green onion, sichuan peppercorn and cooking wine. Cook until you can insert a chopstick into the meat. If you want a softer taste like me, cook it longer. Transfer the pig trotter out and the liquid can be kept as soup stock.
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Heat up 1 tablespoon oil in wok, put the sugar in wok to stir fry until all the sugar melts and you can see large bubbles. Keep stirring during the process. Pour around 1 cup of hot water. Mix well! You need to be stay away from the wok and do not hesitate when pouring the water. If you do not want to stir fry the sugar color, just add sugar in clay pot and skip oil. The later method only influence the color but not the taste.
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Prepare a clay pot or another deep sauce pan or wok, fry ginger slices and other spices for 1-2 minutes until aroma. Add pig trotter in, pour some cooking liquid in the previous until the pig trotter is almost covered. Pour the sugar color in the previous step and soy sauce. Heat over high fire with the lid uncovered until there are large bubbles in the pot and the sauce is almost dried up.
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Sprinkle some green onion and then serve warm!
Hi!
Do we need to add water?
Your recipe doesn’t mention any water, just soy sauce and cooking wine, but it’s difficult to imagine, that 4 spoons of liquid will be enough for cooking the trotter for 2 hours.
Very nice pictures, by the way.
Thank you for posting this recipe
Besides the water to be added, there is also no mention regarding the quantity of pig trotters to cook for the amount of ingredients used. My first attempt to cook the first time without the water resulted in someone burnt spices!
Boon
Hi Boon,
My apologizes! I have updated the recipe.
Looks great!
“watch as needed” in ingredients… do you mean “water as needed’?
Hi there,
Thanks for the correction! Recipe updated!
This looks amazing! Thank you so much for posting your recipe. Can’t wait to try it.
Hi Elaine,
I must confess, that I’m not a big fan of pig trotters. I mostly substitute them by the hind- and foreleg parts which are at least here in Germany dedicated meat cuts and also a much more common thing to find in a regular supermarket. For this recipe I choose to cheat, too and – to my taste – it turned out great. So thank you for that 🙂
I am wondering, do those “middle leg” cuts (between the feet and the shoulder/ham parts) exist in China too, and how are they used? Could you maybe some day give us an introduction to Chinese meat cuts (or does this differ within China, too)?
Read your “About Page” and found this phrase “Cantonese cuisine including 4 yours at university.”. Do you mean to say “4 years”?
Great recipes! Keep it on.
Thank you for your recipe It is superb
You are the most welcome. Happy cooking!
I wonder how much flavour Szechuan pepper gives to this recipe. I found that these pepper corns are almost tasteless. Or else those I used were not of high quality. Can I perhaps use ordinary black peppercorns instead?
Ian,
If your Sichuan peppercorn is tasteless, they are of very low quality. High quality has a very strong aroma.
Excellent recipe!! Very delicious. I also added some pork belly for more meat content. But the trotter has great flavour.
Thanks Edward for the wonderful feedback.