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PIG'S FEET (a la St. Menehould)
Take two large pig's feet which have been salted, or not, as most convenient. Cleanse them perfectly, split them in halves, and bind them securely with tape to keep them in their proper position. Put them into a saucepan, with a quart of broth or water, and with them a little pepper--and salt, if required--a carrot, an onion, a bunch of parsley, a sprig of thyme, a bay-leaf, two cloves, and two or three outer sticks of celery. Let them simmer gently for several hours until quite tender. Drain them, draw out the large bone, and press the feet between two dishes, until they are cold and stiff. When wanted for use, dip them into clarified butter, cover thickly with highly-seasoned bread-crumbs, and broil over a clear fire until they are lightly browned all over. Turn them twice during the operation. Serve on a hot dish, with piquant sauce, or Robert sauce, or, if preferred, with a puree of green peas in the centre of the dish. Time to broil, till hot through. Sufficient for three or four persons.
A two-stage dish: a long gentle braise, then a crumbed grill. Almost all the work is in the first stage, and it can be done days ahead.
- The hinge: cook them far longer than seems necessary"Several hours" means three to four at a bare shiver, until the skin is gelatinous and the large bone draws out easily. Trotters that are merely tender will not press firm, and undercooked collagen stays rubbery under the grill.
- Salted feetFeet "which have been salted" have been cured in salt or brine and may be very salty. Soak them for some hours in several changes of cold water and blanch them briefly before braising; add no further salt until you taste the finished liquid.
- BindingTape means cotton tape. Butcher's twine does the same job, or wrap each half in a strip of muslin and tie. Without it the halves fall apart in the pot and cannot be pressed into shape.
- QuantitiesThis is a British book, so the quart is an imperial quart: 40 fl oz, about 1.1 litres, enough to just cover two split feet in a snug pan. Top up with boiling water if the level drops below the meat.
- The pressTwo dishes with a weight on top — a few cans will do. Chill overnight; the halves set firm in their own gelatin and can then be handled, crumbed and grilled without collapsing.
- Clarified butter and crumbsDry, fine crumbs, well seasoned with pepper, mustard powder or cayenne. Dip the cold pressed halves in warm clarified butter so the crumbs adhere in a thick coat; plain melted butter separates and the crust patches.
- "Broil over a clear fire"That is grilling over glowing coals with no flame. A modern overhead broiler works, about 4 inches from the element, turning twice. They are only being reheated and browned, so eight to twelve minutes is plenty.
- Sauce RobertAn onion, white wine, mustard and stock sauce, still made in French kitchens. Any sharp mustard-and-vinegar sauce answers the "piquant" instruction; the fat of the trotter needs the acidity.
- YieldTwo feet, split, gives four pieces — a main course for two or a substantial starter for four, which is roughly what the book claims.
The name points to Sainte-Menehould, a small town in the Marne in Champagne, whose reputation rests almost entirely on its pigs' trotters: braised until the small bones themselves are edible, then crumbed and grilled. The method spread through French cookery in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as a general treatment — à la Sainte-Menehould came to mean anything cooked, coated in crumbs and browned — and it is often said that Louis XVI stopped to eat them there during the flight to Varennes in 1791, a story repeated far more often than it is documented. Cassell's includes it because trotters were cheap, gelatinous and, treated this way, respectable enough for a dinner table with a purée of peas in the middle of the dish.