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Baked Pig's Ears
Singe off all the hair from half a dozen or so pig's ears, and scrape and blanch them. Let them get cold, put them into warmed butter, rub them over with bread crumbs, covering them completely, then dip them into well-beaten yolk of egg, and breadcrumb them again. Put them in a baking dish in a moderate oven, and bake until done and lightly browned. Take them out, place on a dish, pour over some remoulade sauce and serve.
A simple crumbed-and-baked treatment of a cut that rewards patience: everything depends on how thoroughly the ears are cooked before they are ever breaded.
- "Blanch" means cook through"Blanch" here is unlikely to mean only a brief dip -- a short scald will leave the ears rubbery, and the recipe's own "bake until done" suggests the oven is expected to finish them. The usual modern approach is to simmer them in salted water, or a court bouillon with onion, bay and peppercorns, until a skewer slides through the cartilage with no resistance, commonly 2 to 3 hours. Pressing them flat between two plates while they cool helps them hold their shape for crumbing.
- Singeing and scrapingButchers rarely sell ears with bristle left on today, but check the folds and the base. A gas flame or a kitchen torch handles what remains; scrape with the back of a knife and rinse well, as the crevices trap grit.
- Moderate ovenConventionally taken as about 350F. If the ears have been simmered tender first, the oven is mainly setting the crust and heating them through, and 20 to 25 minutes, turning once, is usually enough; the recipe itself says only to bake "until done and lightly browned."
- Warmed butter, not melted-hotThe butter is the glue for the first crumb layer. It should be soft and just liquid; if it is hot it will slide off the cold ears and the crumbs will not adhere.
- The double crumbingCrumb, then egg yolk, then crumb again. Yolks alone give a richer, deeper-browning coat than whole egg but they are thick — loosen with a teaspoon of water or cream per yolk so the coating stays thin.
- RemouladeIn this book's French idiom that means mayonnaise with mustard, chopped capers, gherkins, anchovy and herbs — not the pink, paprika-heavy New Orleans version. Serve it cool alongside or spooned over at the last moment, since it will break if it sits on hot food.
- YieldHalf a dozen ears serve three or four as a first course. Cut each into strips before serving; whole ears are awkward on the plate.
Pig's ears belong to the long European tradition of using every part of the animal, and they turn up in French charcuterie as oreilles de porc, most often boiled, pressed, crumbed and grilled or fried — a sequence close to, though not identical with, the one set down here. Their presence in a Waldorf book is a reminder that the hotel kitchen of the 1890s worked in the classical French manner throughout, where offal and extremities were treated with the same seriousness as saddle of lamb, and that dishes now filed under nose-to-tail cooking were simply part of a large repertoire. The pairing with rémoulade is conventional: a sharp, mustard-and-caper mayonnaise cuts the gelatinous richness of the cartilage.