Hello Reader,

One of my fondest childhood meals was braised pig trotters in vinegar with ginger. Mum made it once every year or so when I was a boy.

It wasn’t until I was an adult that Mum explained the purpose of this dish. It was to nourish new mothers after their bodies were depleted of essential life force associated with gestation, confinement, and the postpartum demands of a newborn infant. I don’t know if there is any scientific evidence to support this. I don’t care. I like the taste of the dish. It has the sharpness of the vinegar, the sweetness of the sugar, and the refreshing heat of the ginger. It would make my mouth tingle and feel fresh.

I’d only had this dish made with white vinegar as a child and teenager. Up until my 30s, I had no idea that black vinegar was a thing. I recall going to Hong Kong for a work trip in the early 2000s. It was a one-night stay, and for lunch, we went to a local café, and I saw pig trotters in ginger and black vinegar on the menu. I wondered if it might be like the dish Mum made. It wasn’t like Mum’s at all. (In my humble opinion) black vinegar pig trotters aren’t as enjoyable as Mum’s. Since then, I’ve had pig trotters in ginger and vinegar in other restaurants, and they were all black vinegar dishes. They all had a hint of Mum’s dish but not the essential essence.

I was chatting with Mum during the week and asked if she could share her recipe with me.

“Gary, it’s been so long since I’ve made that dish. I never had a recipe; I just threw things into a pot. We never had fancy Chinese vinegar, so we’d substitute with whatever we had.”

Mum uses Johnnie Walker red and black label whisky for cooking because she doesn’t have Chinese cooking wine. Dad would get bottles of whiskey as gifts from patients every Christmas. My parents, like me, don’t drink alcohol; Mum would cook with it. Like the wine, rather than Chinese vinegar, Mum used cheap white vinegar.

It turns out it’s been close to 25 years since Mum has made this dish.

So, dear reader, this is an experiment; I will toss in a pressure cooker the things Mum can remember and see what happens.

Just a note for the fair dinkum East Asian food aficionados, I’m not adding the boiled eggs because it’s too much faffing about. All I care about is the meat and fat, and flavour. If I’d given birth and was breastfeeding, I still doubt I’d faff with the eggs.

Ingredients

• Pig trotters (I bought mine from the local butcher)¹
• Pork belly (I bought two trotters, so I thought I’d add some pork belly because I wanted more meat. I think hocks would have been better.)
• White or rice vinegar (not sure if rice vinegar would work)
• Dry sherry²
• Ginger (a big girthy rhizome³, long with good weight [technically, ginger isn’t a root, it’s a rhizome] Big girthy rhizome sounds better than a big girthy root too)
• Sugar (white)
• Salt (iodised)
• Pepper (freshly pounded white and black peppercorns in a mortar with a pestle)
• MSG (as much as you want)⁴
• Cloves (a few)
• Rice (I used jasmine rice because that’s all I had)
• Bok choi (this is optional, but I know there will be readers who will tsk and wonder about my bowel health)
• Spring onions (this as garnish)

Instructions

1. Remove the bristles from the pig trotters. Unless you like the mouthfeel of some hairs as you mouth and suck on the skin and gelatinous fat off the pig’s trotter. It might be like mouthing and sucking someone’s toes. How do you feel about toe jam⁵? Do you like sucking toes? I could have used a disposable razor to shave off the hairs but I didn’t because I’m lazy and I don’t mind hairy.
2. Peel a few thick girthy thumbs of ginger. I like a lot of ginger but use as much or as little as you like.
3. Cut the ginger into bite-size pieces and give them a good whack with a Chinese cleaver to help release flavour.
4. Add the trotters, vinegar, dry sherry, sugar, ginger, salt, MSG, cloves, and pepper into the cooking vessel of a pressure cooker. Mum didn’t give me weights and volumes, so I guessed based on intuition. If you really want to know, it was a couple of cups of vinegar, a cup of dry sherry, a cup of sugar, a teaspoon of salt, a teaspoon of MSG, maybe half a dozen or so cloves, and a tablespoon each of the white and black peppercorns.
5. Cook for 40 minutes. Again, this duration is a guess based on feelings. The time starts when the pressure is reached not when you turn it on.
6. Cook rice. Use a rice cooker if you have one, or microwave a packet and try to avoid criticism from purists.
7. Allow the pressure cooker to equilibrate and leave it for at least 15 minutes. Taking the lid off a pressure prematurely can leave your meat dry. It’s like most things that happen prematurely, you want to give things time and do it slowly.⁶
8. Gently remove the pig trotters and pork belly from the cooking vessel and pass the liquor through a sieve.
9. Place the filtered liquor into a saucepan and reduce it to a slightly sticky syrup.
10. Place the fluffy rice into a bowl and add the pork and reduced liquor into another bowl.
11. As an option, if you like green things, you could steam some Chinese vegetables like Bok choi or something similar.
12. Garnish the pig trotters with some spring onions. I also like garnishing with bird’s-eye chillies. While this dish doesn’t need the heat of the chilli, I like keeping my mucous membranes and nerve endings excited.
13. Give thanks to the Lord.
14. Eat with chopsticks and a spoon.

Thoughts

It turns out I did a thing! It tasted okay. It may not be authentic, but I’m happy. Now I need to practice this dish; perhaps Mum may like it.

To be fair, I think I may have used too much pepper and ginger. While not lingering, my mouth especially my lips were tingling like I’d had a mouthful of Sichuan pepper. The Bird’s-eye chillies which I used as garnish reinforced the heat on my lips and tongue.

Unlike most meals I write about, this one had a bit of thought behind it. I didn’t know if it would work. It could have been awful. I’m grateful it wasn’t.

The current outbreak of Japanese encephalitis which is affecting the Australian pork industry will likely cause the prices of pork to escalate. I’m savouring this dish as I plan to eat more chicken and vegetables.

In case anyone is concerned, while pigs are amplifying hosts of the Japanese encephalitis virus, JEV infection of pigs has no effect on the meat which is still safe for human consumption. Unfortunately, JEV infection of sows results in fetal death in utero and mummification of piglets. We really need to get on top of the outbreak to keep pigs healthy, farmers happy, and consumers satisfied.

Final thoughts

1. Do you have a childhood dish you’re keen to make? What is it?
2. Do you like pig trotters? How about pig hocks?
3. Would you like a meal like this to replenish your vital essences if you’ve recently given birth?
4. If you try making this, please leave a comment for me to read. Thank you.

Footnotes

1. I bought the pig trotters from The Butcher Shop at Jamison Plaza
2. Chinese cooking wine would also be okay
3. An underground stem that has roots and shoots from its nodes
4. King of flavour
5. Toe jam refers to the crud which accumulates between toes. Washing your feet is essential.
6. When I first read about the slow food movement, I thought it was a bit poncy, however, I’ve learnt how much better my cooking and eating enjoyment is when I take things slowly and move deliberately.