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Pig's Feet and Ears
Clean and soak the feet and ears, and boil them in water until they are tender. Split the feet in halves, draw out the bones, and press them between two dishes until they are cold and stiff. Cut the ears into strips, half an inch wide, and set them also aside. When they are to be served, dissolve two ounces of fresh butter, and mix smoothly with it a tea-spoonful of flour. Slice two good-sized onions, and stew them in the mixture until they are tender; put in the ears, and when they are hot, stir in with them a tea-spoonful of mixed mustard. Turn the whole upon a hot dish, and keep it in a warm place. Dip the feet into clarified butter and seasoned bread-crumbs, and broil over a clear fire. Put them on the dish, with the ears, etc., and serve as hot as possible. Time to boil, until tender; to broil, ten minutes. Sufficient for four or five persons.
A two-part dish from the cheap-cuts end of the butcher's counter: the ears become a warm mustard-onion stew, the boned feet are crumbed and grilled. The hinge is the long initial boil — anything less than fully tender and both parts stay rubbery and stubbornly gelatinous.
- "Boil until tender" means hoursTrotters and ears need roughly 2½ to 3 hours at a bare simmer, until a skewer slides through the skin with no resistance and the small bones in the feet pull free by hand. A pressure cooker does it in about 45 minutes. A rolling boil shreds the skin, so keep the water just trembling.
- Cleaning and soakingSoak for several hours in cold water, changing it once or twice, to draw out blood. Check for bristles and singe or scrape any that remain — supermarket trotters are usually clean, but ears often are not.
- Pressing between two dishesThis is a light terrine technique: the natural gelatin sets as it cools, so the boned half-feet hold a flat shape for crumbing. Press with a weight (a couple of tins on a plate) and chill at least four hours, preferably overnight.
- Mixed mustardNot a mustard blend — in Victorian usage it is dry mustard powder already mixed to a paste with water, i.e. prepared English mustard. A teaspoon of any sharp prepared mustard does the job; stir it in off the heat so it keeps its bite.
- Butter and flourTwo ounces is about 55 g, or 4 tablespoons; a teaspoon of flour is only enough to lightly bind the onions, not to make a sauce. Cook it a minute before the onions go in so it does not taste raw.
- Broiling over a clear fire"Clear" means burnt down to coals with no flame or smoke. Indoors, use a preheated broiler close to the element, or a hot oven at about 425F, turning once — ten minutes is enough to crisp the crumbs, since the meat is already fully cooked.
- Clarified butterUsed here because the milk solids in whole butter scorch and blacken the crumbs under direct heat. Melt butter, skim the foam, pour off the clear fat and leave the milky residue behind; ghee serves much the same purpose, though it tastes nuttier.
- ServingThe original gives four or five servings without stating how many feet and ears that assumes. Everything must go out very hot — pork skin gelatin stiffens fast as it cools, and the dish is unpleasant lukewarm. Something sharp alongside, such as pickles or a vinegared salad, cuts the richness.
Pig's feet and ears belong to the thrift tradition that Cassell's, a middle-class household dictionary of the 1870s onward, still took entirely seriously: every part of a pig had a use, and the extremities — full of collagen and cheap — supported a whole family of dishes from brawn and jellied trotters to the grilled pieds de porc panés of French cookery, which this recipe resembles in method. Mustard and cornichons remain a standard accompaniment to trotters in French bistro cooking, though mustard with pork was an English habit too. The technique of crumbing and grilling long-cooked trotters is related to the classic Sainte-Menehould, named for the town in Champagne long associated with the dish, though that version characteristically keeps the bones in rather than boning and pressing the feet flat. Offal and extremities fell out of British domestic cooking through the twentieth century and have come back mainly through restaurant kitchens, which is why a recipe that once needed no explanation now needs a note on how long "until tender" really is.