Trotters a la Icarus (or, Pig's Feet Flying Too Close to the Sun)

Heard about a new butcher recently, won a Best of Boston award (fine, I'll drop a plug: M.F. Dulock in Somerville).  Good place, lots of interesting cuts, and high quality.  Feeling fairly confident in myself, I decided to grab some trotters.  How hard could it be to debone them and stuff them full of spiced groung pork?  I should have noticed that the term for the stuffing on these things is "farce".  But never mind!  First, we debone a pork shoulder.

Grind up a combination of white and black peppercorns, nutmeg, cinnamon, cumin, cloves, and allspice.

Combine with chopped pork, garlic, and salt, and let hang out in the fridge while you deal with the feet.

OK.  So, error the first: This recipe calls for a lot more shank than I bought.  Mine are more up-to-the-ankle.  No matter!  We soldier on.

How to skin this?  It's mostly bone.  Some French chefs can slip their knives between skin and bone and remove it like a sock, but nuh-uh.  Let's just take our time.

Note: Don't do it like this.

Better.  Also note: Soon after this, I bought a real boning knife.  

Yeah, that took about 15 minutes, and lot of effort.  No lost fingers, though.  Only three more to go.

To complete the farce, throw the pork and any odd foot scraps through the grinder.

Stuff each foot, and tie it up to keep everything together.

Bring chicken stock to a simmer with bay leaf and garlic cloves.

Lay out some cheesecloth, and roll up the feet.  Then tie it up like a roast.

Place into the pot, and simmer for upwards of four hours.

Or, you could put everything into a slow cooker.

Remove from the liquid, and unwrap.  Don't discard that liquid!  There's so much collagen in there, you've just made pork jello! Keep that around for your next noodle soup.  It can be frozen.  Anyway, place the feet in a roasting pan.

Still needs more flavor. Combine whole grain mustard with beer.

Brush over feet, and roast.

Roast, basting throughout, until the skin gets crispy.  Note: The skin never got crispy.

Sigh, shrug your shoulders, and serve it anyway garnished with sea salt.  

Tasting notes -- The flavors are good, but the texture was really, really soft.  I suppose that's what it was supposed to be like, but it was personally unappealing.  And rich.  Really, really rich.  I was looking for crispy skin, with an intense sausage bite.  If I ever do this again, I might make a more chorizo-like sausage (or maybe merguez), and skip the poaching, going straight to a low-and-slow oven, like a barbecue.  Live and learn, I suppose.  On the plus side, I've got all that pork jello....

Tacos al Ignorantes

I cam across a cool idea for making Tacos al Pastor a while back, and even though I wasn't feeling the pineapple tonight (though I do enjoy it sometimes), I really wanted to try the technique.

So, start with a dried Ancho and Pasilla pepper, toasted.  Notice how it puffs up when heated.

Hit the hot pan with chicken stock, and dump everything in a bowl to soak.

In the same pan, add some oil, ground annatto seed, cumin, and oregano.  Let it get nice an murky, and throw in a chipotle chili in adobo, and some of the sauce.  Cook for about a minute.

Throw that muck in a blender, along with the softened and seeded dry chilis, the soaking liquid, salt, and garlic.  Blend into a thick paste.

Thinly slice a pork roast against the grain, then pound it out to get even thinner.

Throw it in a bowl, and toss with the chili gunk.

OK, now it's time to put this together.  We'll need some bacon, because, you know, bacon.

In a loaf pan, line the bottom with bacon.  Then layer on the thin slabs of pork.  Then, more bacon.  Repeat as necessary.

Once built, wrap it up tightly, and let it chill in the fridge overnight.  The salt will begin to do awesome things to the meat.

The next day, put it into a 275 oven for 4 hours.  There will be lots of fat.  This is good.

That is a thing of glory.  Ok, let it cool, then stash in the fridge for a few more hours.  Hey, no one said this was going to be quick.  

Time passes.

Let's eat.  Remove the meatcake from the fat, and slice crosswise, in 1/4" sections.  Thinner, if possible.

Spoon some fat into a pan, and give the meat one last sear.

Prepare your condiments, and assemble. We've got lime, onion, radish, cilantro, pico de gallo, some doctored up sour cream, cojita cheese, and avocados.

Try not to act like a starving hyena while eating this; fail.