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The Nasty Bits: Pig's Foot

Posted by Chichi Wang, March 8, 2011 at 5:15 PM

[Photos: Chichi Wang]

There's a song that's sung by Billie Holiday, Nina Simone, and other jazz greats that goes, "Give me a pig's foot, and a bottle of beer," which pretty much sums up my point of view on a lot of things, culinary and otherwise.

Because of its unique combination of bones, skin, and flesh, one little pig's foot offers just the right amount of gelatin and body, making it an indispensable tool in the cook's arsenal. Think about all those little bones in the foot, all that cartilage, all those tendons and all that dark meat flesh wrapped up neatly in a bundle of thick skin. Porcine perfection.

I rely so heavily on the trotter's ability to produce a full-bodied, meaty broth, in fact, that I saran-wrap pig's feet one by one and keep them on the side door of my freezer. That way if I'm making something like a winter kale and white bean stew, I can grab a trotter and plop it into the pot, while it's still frozen. Even if I'm using some kind of smoked meat, which I almost always do, and even if I've filled the pot with full-bodied items like chickpeas and white beans, I still add the pig's foot. Two hours later, that foot will have made the broth so much richer that the liquid coats the back of the spoon in a slightly velvety sheen. As an additional bonus, you also get the benefit of eating the meat and skin once the soup is done cooking.

Trotter gear, thusly coined and made a "thing" by Fergus Henderson, is that stock made from trotters simmered in water. Trotter gear is so gelatinous when it's refrigerated that it looks more like some translucent rubber eraser than meat stock. It's a boon to have in the kitchen as either a base or a finishing glaze for sauces, risottos, and pasta dishes, providing that boost of additional body for lackluster stocks and broths. (Although, if you get into the habit of tossing a foot into your stews, then you may not need the glue quite as often.)

When Kenji and I were talking about trotters, as we tend to do, he mentioned that pig's feet have a mild flavor profile, which means that they could, and should, go into other kinds of animal broths as well. It was a simple suggestion, but of course it made me wonder why I hadn't thought of it myself.

Now I add a trotter to the pot when I'm making chicken soup, or menudo, or anything else hot and soupy. The flavor of the foot is indeed so unassuming yet important for the development of the soup's body that it does make sense to add it to not only pork, but also chicken, beef, and lamb broths—that is, as long as you don't mind mixing your fowl and four-legged friends, your ominivores with your ruminants.

The message of the last winter-stew related post was: smoked meat in soup. To that I might add: and pig's foot for good measure.

Get the recipe for trotter gear here »

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Tags: Fergus Henderson, pig's foot, pork, The Nasty Bits, trotter gear, trotters