"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

"Pot Au Feu": Braised Prime Beef Short Ribs with Root Vegetables and Sautéed Bone Marrow

With winter finally here and our first snowfall (!!) behind us, what better to cook and serve than a hearty bowl of Pot Au Feu, right? Pot Au Feu is literally translated from French to mean "pot on the flame/fire"; the loose translation is that it's a French boiled/simmered meat stew. However, leave it to me to have to translate it yet again to accurately reflect my experience with it -- Pot Au Duh -- because, well, you'll see. Read on, you rascals, read on...

Let's start where all good dishes should start: bone marrow. I went to my usual guys at Union Meat Company at DC's Eastern Market, but we had a bit of miscommunication over the phone and they didn't have what I needed and weren't able to get it for a few days. So, I got on the phone and called a few other places and was able to get some marrow bone pieces from a funky little grocery store in Silver Spring called Snider's. I also picked up my ribs there, but that's a story for later on in today's program. Back to the bone marrow... I soaked the bones in ice water for about 20 minutes:


I drained them and went about removing the marrow from each bone. I had a tough time doing this, and had to soak them briefly in warm water to loosen the marrow. That didn't work. So, I got out a small paring knife and gently went around the edges to try and nudge it out. Also, not successful. I ended up having to use a combination of skewer and paring knife to get those suckers out, so they looked as hacked up as Joan Van Ark's face when I finally got it done:


I soaked the marrow in ice water overnight, changing the water after the first 8 hours to remove the bloody water and avoid spoilage.

Next, I prepped the red wine marinade for the ribs, since they, too, needed to sit in the fridge overnight. To make the marinade, I poured a bottle of Tyrus Evans Claret into a pot, along with some carrots, leeks, onions, garlic, parsley, thyme and a bay leaf:



I brought it to a boil, then removed it from the burner, and lit a match on the surface of the marinade to burn off the alcohol. After three matches, I was good to go and let the marinade come to room temperature while I prepped the ribs. Here's where I discover why it's important NOT to talk on your cellphone while at the grocery store.

I opened the refrigerator to take out what I thought were three-and-a-half pounds of boneless prime beef shortribs. That's what I asked the butcher at Snider's to have ready for me. And, I know it's what he handed me. However, I had to take a call from a client while I was completing my meat transaction, and I placed the package of ribs in the meat cooler area while they were cutting my marrow bones. When I was done with the call, I strolled back over to the meat section and picked up what I thought were my beef shortribs. Alas, I didn't realize until 1 a.m., when I was prepping the marinade and reaching this step in the dish that I had picked up someone else's order -- 5 pounds of pork baby back ribs. Knowing my only options were to wait until morning to go buy more ribs, or just say "F it" and move on, I decided that I'd wing it and see if I could make the dish work in a more pork-tastic manner. So, I weighed out 3.5 pounds of the ribs and put them in a giant ziploc along with the marinade:


I went to bed, cursing all the way upstairs, and thinking, "well, maybe I can pull this off." The next day, I preheated the oven to 275 and stuck my head in it. KIDDING. I did preheat the oven, and removed the ribs from the marinade. They were an interesting shade of purple I shan't soon forget:


They actually look sort of beef-ish, don't they? I poured the marinade from the ziploc into a saucepan, straining it to hold back the vegetables. I simmered the liquid and removed all the gunky crap, I'm sorry, impurities:



I was left with a beautiful, fragrant liquid that would be used in the braising process later on. Or would it?


I heated some canola oil in a large skillet and seasoned the ribs with salt and pepper, dusted them lightly with flour, then cooked them for 2-3 minutes on each side until they were browned. I put the ribs in a heavy pot to prep them for braising. I poured the oil out of the skillet and sautéed the reserved vegetables from the marinade. I caramelized them, then put them in the pot with the ribs:


Time to put these ribs in the oven to braise for a few hours. All I have to do at this point is add 3 cups of homemade chicken stock (check) and 3 cups of homemade veal stock (che... oh shit). Yeah. I thawed the WRONG STOCK. I organize and label my stocks pretty clearly, but after a thorough freezer cleaning by my awesome cleaning lady, I did some rearranging and accidentally put some mushroom stock on the same shelf as the veal stock. Yes, ladies and germs, I had 3 cups of mushroom stock waiting to go in my Pot Au Duh. I figured since I already screwed up the beef purchase and was using pork instead that WHY NOT just move forward with mushroom stock and see what happens. I knew the combination wasn't lethal (unlike my charming good looks), so once again, I said "F it" and rolled with the punches.

If you're playing along with the cookbook in hand, you'll notice that in addition to all these creative substitutions, I'm also forgetting a key ingredient in the braising pot. We'll reveal that at the end and keep the trauma coming.

Okay -- the meat is in the pot with the veggies and the stock, so I covered it with a parchment lid and put it in a 275-degree oven for about 4 hours.


Over the course of the braising, it smelled better and better, so I knew it wouldn't completely suck... but I was still grumbling at myself, because you know, that's really helpful.

Time to make the donuts. Kidding. That's in a few weeks, actually.

Time to prep the root vegetables: carrots, parsnips, turnips, scallions, and white and red pearl onions. I peeled the onions and cut the other vegetables into somewhat equal sizes:


I blanched and ice-bathed (separately) the carrots, parsnips, turnips, scallions and white onions. When it came time to blanch the red onions, I added a bit of red wine vinegar to the boiling water so they'd hold their color. I let them cool in the ice bath, drained and dried them on paper towels, then put them all in a bowl (minus the scallions) until I was ready to finish the dish:


After the ribs were done braising, I removed them from the braising liquid and rested them on a plate:


Wow, they look pitiful, don't they. Jeesh. I skimmed the fat from and then strained the braising liquid into a taller, skinnier pot and threw away the vegetables. I strained the liquid three times to make sure it was clean. This is one dish where I'm glad I have multiple strainers, chinois, and pots, because I used a ton of them and had my dishwasher running all day. I reserved some of the braising liquid in which I would later cook the vegetables, and more of the liquid for reheating the ribs. The rest, I reduced to a sauce consistency, which took about an hour.

To finish the dish, I reheated the ribs in a skillet with some canola oil, then added some of the braising liquid to keep them warm while I finished the vegetables:


I put the vegetables along with some tomato diamonds in a medium saucepan, and covered them with the rest of the braising liquid.

It's at this point that I see there's a saucepan of room temperature liquid sitting on a hotpad on my countertop. I think, "Huh, that must be for the sauce that goes on the bottom of the dish, right?" So I read and re-read the dish's instructions from start to finish, trying to figure out what this mystery liquid is. It smells great, and as soon as I take a second whiff, I let out my third string of expletives in a 24-hour period because I realize that this is the remainder of the red wine marinade -- the stuff I'd skimmed all that gunk out of -- and was supposed to add to the ribs as part of the braising liquid FOUR HOURS AGO WHEN THE BRAISING PROCESS BEGAN. I went back and forth in my head about what I could do with it -- could I add it to the sauce, should I put some on the vegetables, and decided that I'd already screwed up enough with this dish that I was just going to have to ditch it and not worry about it. Bye-bye red wine marinade sauce. Nice knowin' ya.

It's at this point that I'm ready for this dish to be o-v-e-r because I feel like such a doofus for not being able to handle such simple ingredients. The pig head I'm going to do in the spring? I expect that to be difficult. Butchering a lamb? Challenging beyond anything I've done before. But, buying pork instead of beef, and forgetting to include a really important component in a braise? The self-esteem is taking a hit, my friends.

So, now what do I have to do? Oh yes, remove the bone marrow from its ice bath in the fridge and look at those amateur hack jobs and feel EVEN BETTER about myself. Remember what they looked like? You don't? Here, let me remind you:


I bet you thought I was gonna ka-pow you with the Joan Van Ark photo again, didn't you. You're welcome.

I drained and dried the marrow pieces, seasoned them quite liberally with kosher salt, then coated them in flour and cooked them for a few minutes in some canola oil in a non-stick pan. I fully expected them to a) explode, b) melt, or c) shoot across the room. Fortunately, the planets were in alignment and they turned out perfectly. You'll see them in the plating photos... speak of the devil... first in the dish, the vegetables:


Next on the plate went the ribs:


Next? The marrow:


And finally, the scallion, along with a few chopped chives and some grey salt:


Doesn't look too bad, does it? I've had really good Pot Au Feu before, so knowing all the behind the scenes nonsense that went on in making this dish, I fully expected to not enjoy this. But you know what? It was good. It was better than good. I really enjoyed it, and my friends did as well. When they opened the front door to come into the house, it was raining and cold outside, so my warm, meat-smelling house was a welcome place to be.

We sat down at the table and I explained the dish, and we tucked in. Every bit of it was delicious and enjoyable -- especially the marrow. When I was younger, I didn't like marrow -- I couldn't stand the texture, and my grandfather used to eat it all the time. My mom had some recently when we went out for dinner and it smelled good. The marrow I had at Per Se was the best I'd ever eaten, and honestly? Mine was a close second. To me, eating sautéed bone marrow now as an adult is a little bit like when in A Time To Kill, Ashley Judd and Matthew McConaughey are covered in a thin film of summer-in-Mississippi, silky, sexy sweat. If you think about it too much, it's gross. But if you just leap before you look, you'll love it.

The pork was tender, and the bones just slid right out. The vegetables were really clean yet hearty and cooked just right. Not mushy at all, but they didn't give any resistance when you bit into them. I can't imagine if doing this so wrong made it taste this right, how excellent doing it the right way is going to be.

I will probably do this dish again: with beef shortribs, veal stock, and remembering to include the red wine sauce when braising. I'll be sure to let you know how it turns out. But really, this Pot Au Duh wasn't bad and turned out WAY better than I ever could've hoped.

To add insult to injury, had I used the boneless beef shortribs intended for this dish, I would not have had to walk up and down my street in my pajamas the next morning with my hair all over the place, collecting the pork rib bones that the raccoons dug out of the outside garbage can and spread throughout the neighborhood. Good times.... gooooood tiiiimmmesss....

Up Next: Roquefort Trifle with French Butter Pear Relish (my last cheese dish in the book, :::sniff, sniff:::)

Resources:
Marrow bones and ribs from Snider's
365 canola oil
Tyrus Evans 2003 Claret for red wine marinade
Produce and aromatics from Whole Foods

Music to Cook By: The Spice Girls, assorted. Don't be a hater. I just saw the Girls in concert in LA with Catherine and Heather, and had a wonderful night of overly camp people-watching. It was fantastic!

Please Stand By...

I burned my left hand (the entire palm and all fingers) pretty badly this evening while making the Five-Spice Roasted Maine Lobster. I also singed a small section of my right palm, so it's difficult (not to mention really painful) to type right now. I'm going to sit here with ice packs wrapped around both hands and hope they're not going to blister as badly as it looks like they will.

This sucks. I feel like such a loser. Note to self, remember which pans on your stovetop were in the oven for 90 minutes and then DON'T PICK THEM UP BY THE HANDLE WITH YOUR BARE HANDS.

Be back soon....

p.s. -- Happy birthday, Mom.