"Head to Toe" -- Part One (Pig's Feet)

I don't think it's a big secret that I've been dreading this dish. When I first started this project, I had no idea I'd even make it this far, and now that I've survived deveining foie gras and cutting the faces off soft-shell crabs, and eaten an oyster without passing out in a pool of my own vomit, this dish was inevitable. I've been putting it off long enough. Time to face one of my biggest culinary fears head on ("apply directly to the forehead") and just do it. What's the worst that could happen?

Ooops, did I speak to soon?

Oh, just you wait and see.

"Head to Toe" is broken into two parts in The French Laundry Cookbook -- Braised Stuffed Pig's Head with Sauce Gribiche, and Pig's Feet with French Green Lentils. We're gonna start with the feet, and get to the head in a later post. Wow. I can't wait to see what freak-ass Google search lands someone on this page based on that last sentence. Yipes.

I've actually eaten pig's feet before -- the meat is really delicious, and I like a traditional French country preparation, as this one was intended to be. Notice how I used the word "intended" there? Yeah. Hoo-boy, here we go:

I picked up some trotters at Eastern Market, brought them home and cleaned them. I had the option of buying just the feet, or what I bought below, which is the feet with the shank attached. I decided to do this because you have to split and braise them, then use the skin to wrap the meat in during part of the cooking process, so I wanted to make sure I had some nice, long pieces of skin to work with:

I can hear some of you shuddering. It's okay. I understand. Completely. While I like the meat that a pig's foot produces, I have a bit of trouble with my gag reflex when I see a whole pig's foot. Why? It all stems from a hot, crowded concert hall in New Orleans a few years ago. It was a Sunday afternoon, and I was a little hungover (okay, a LOT hungover), and we were all packed into this hall like sardines (come to think of it, quite a few people actually smelled like sardines, but I digress). As the different bands and music groups took their turn on the stage, people moved around to get a better view. I ended up standing next to a couple who were probably in their late 50s/early 60s. The woman had a giant purse, out of which she took two ziploc bags -- one for her, one for him. Each one had something in it that I couldn't really make out until they each opened their bags and I smelled a pickled substance. Then, they inched out the food product little by little and began gnawing on it.

Lucky me, they each had brought a pickled pig's foot to chew on during the show in the 90-degree-heat-with-no-ventilation room. To top it off, they also dunked potato chips in the pickled pig's foot juice and ate them with reckless abandon. Had I not been hungover, it might not have been so gross. No wait, I take that back. It would have. I had to leave the room to get some water and some fresh air. To this day, I still remember what that smelled like. Oooof. (on a side note, when Katrina hit two weeks later that man and woman were the first people I thought of when I watched the footage of the flooding; I still think about them from time to time and hope they're okay.)

Back to the dish.....

As directed, I split the trotters lengthwise. That's where the fun began. Of course, I am lying. It was not fun. Not at all. It took forever and a day to do, I used every curse word I've ever learned in every language I've ever spoken, and I debated going to Lowe's to buy an industrial table saw. I gots no skillz, yo.

I placed the split-open trotters skin side down onto a bed of aromatics (carrots, onion, leek, bay leaf, thyme sprigs, parsley) and mirepoix (carrots, leeks, onions), then covered them with more vegetables. I added chicken stock and water to cover them, put the lid on the pot, and brought it to a simmer:


After I brought it up to a simmer, I put the pot in the oven at 300 degrees for what was going to be six hours. The book recommends the six-hour cooking time, but it also adds the caveat of "or until the meat is falling away from the bone." For me, that happened at about the 4.5-hour mark... and what also happened is that the skin completely disintegrated. Shredded. Melted. Went bye-bye. Bought the farm. Flipped me off. Rendered itself completely useless.

So, I took the feet out of the braise, deboned them (which was kind of gross), removed all the meat, shredded it, and put it in a little storage container next to the storage container of skin I was able to salvage.


I put the containers of meat and skin in the fridge and debated what to do next. The house still smelled pretty good -- the scent of braised pork in almost any form is a very nice thing, but even a fine-smelling, porky house does not make up for the fact that I knew I was sort of in the shitter on this one.

The next step in the book is creating the farce (or stuffing) for the skins, then stuffing them, wrapping them in caul fat, and cooking them before serving them on a bed of green lentils. However, I knew the pieces of skin were too small (the largest, most intact one was 2x3") so I knew I couldn't finish this dish the way I had planned to, so I had to improvise and figure out something else. I decided to just serve the pig feet meat (great name for a band by the way, "Ladies and gentlemen, I give you: Piiiiiiiiiiig Feeeeeeeeet Meeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaat!!!!!!!!!!") over lentils. I thought it would taste pretty good.

What I didn't think about is what it would look like. Note to self: THINK ABOUT THIS KIND OF THING, YOU DUMBASS.

I had thawed some veal stock for another dish I was working on, so I took a bit of that and mixed it with the meat from the feet and reheated it in a small saucepan on the stove.

I had already cleaned the lentils the day before, so I made those (with a little garlic, slab bacon, carrot and onion) and they looked great. The pig feet meat was all warmed up and ready to go, so it was just a matter of plating the dish.

But first:

"Aw, who is that precious child with the yarn-tied, lopsided pigtails looking all pensive as she contemplates which present to open first?" you may be asking yourself. Before I show you the final dish, I thought I'd insert a photo from my birthday party when I was four as a cheap ploy to garner some love and support because once you see this final dish, you will lose any and all respect for me and you will say, "Huh. I didn't know there was a recipe for Ken-L-Ration in The French Laundry Cookbook."



Sorry about that. Trust me when I tell you it actually looked WORSE in person. And in addition to its non-beauty, the meat smelled great while it was braising but when I warmed it up using a little veal stock, it made it smell like really bad b.o., which, you know, is great at meal time.

One of the most frequently asked questions I get is "how many times to you try these dishes before you finally post it?" And, my answer is "One." When I started this project, I debated whether or not to test some of these dishes before doing a final version for the site, and I decided that it would be much more interesting (and honest, and cost-effective) to employ and "one-and-done" strategy.

This dish is a prime example of that.

I had a few friends over to taste it, and they sat down at the table and didn't say a word as they stared at their plates waiting for the ghost of Allen Funt to appear (or Ashton Kutcher, for you young whippersnappers out there - now GET OUT OF MY YARD!). We each took a bite, chewed semi-politely, swallowed, pushed our plates away, and drank many, many glasses of water.

Not only did it look and smell pretty bad, it didn't taste all that great, either. Texturally, it was really stringy and weird, and the smell overpowered any positive taste aspect there might have been.

So, pig feet meat? Great band name. Not so great dinner.

Pig: 1 Carol: 0

Up Next: "Head to Toe," Part Two. The moment you've all been waiting for: The Pig's Head.

Resources:
Trotters from Union Meat Company; Eastern Market; Washington, D.C.
Produce from Whole Foods
Lentils from TPSS Co-op

Music to Cook By: Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam; Head to Toe. Are you surprised?

Read My Previous Post: French Laundry at Home Extra -- How (not) To Cook Tripe