It feels like I have not posted a cooking blog in such a long time and I do miss it. Recently, I was craving for a pickled dish that my mom would make when I was growing up. I love anything from pig's feet to pig's ear. This time I am making Taiwanese pickled pig's ear and....... may be next time I will show you how to cook pig's feet. Pickled pig's ear is usually eaten cold, but I don't mind eating it warm either. I know some culture makes it differently and this is just one way of the many ways to do it. Some people are not fond of the texture, however, the crunchiness of the cartilage and the chewiness of the skin is just the perfect combination. Are you willing to try it?
Pig's ears can be bought at any Asian supermarket and I got mines from Ranch 99. The first thing you want to do is rinse the ear very well.
Here, I have star anise (8-9) and star anise powder (a handful)
After, clean the pig's ear, pour the star anise and star anise powder in a rice cooking pot then add some water. Make sure you add enough water to cover most of the pig's ear.
Once everything is mixed together, we are going to wrap it up and let it sit in the fridge for a day.
Next day.....
When I removed the saran wrap, I can see that my pig's ear has absorbed a lot of the flavor from the star anise because the skin from the pig's ear turned to a light brown color. I do prefer to have it sit in the fridge for 2 days to get more flavor but what the heck... I want to eat it that night.
Now, you can drain the star anise out of the bowl, but don't rinse the pig's ear. Let whatever that is on stay on. Then add some water back into the rice cooking pot.... probably 4-5 cups of water. Just enough to cook the pig's ear in the rice cooker for 30-45 minutes. After it is done cooking in the rice cooker, don't remove it from the rice cooker just yet. Let it sit for 15 minutes to absorb more flavor.
Ahhhh.... it is nicely cooked when you know you can stick a chopstick through it. Since it is hot, I will let it sit for a bit and then slice the ears in 1/2 x 1 pieces.
The thinner you can slice it, the better it is. I just don't have enough patients to stand there and thinly slice each ear.
Flavor time!!! So, I added a lot of green onions.... it makes it taste fresh and I just love the flavor it adds to the dish. I sliced about 5 whole stalk of green onions. Again, it will look nicer if you thinly sliced the green onions, but here I got pretty messy about it. =)
I forgot to show that I added 1/2 of cup of white vinegar. But I want to make sure you do add it if you are going to make this dish.
Next, I added my Lee Kum Kee Chili Garlic Sauce. HOLLA to Lee Kum Kee.... I love using this brand... it never disappoints me in the flavor department. Here, you can add as much as you like.... depending on how spicy you like this dish to be. I like mine to be super spicy!!!!
In addition, add one teaspoon of salt and a teaspoon of black pepper.
This is how it looks when everything is mixed. After this step, if you like to eat this as a cold dish, put it in the fridge to chill for 3-4 hours and also it helps for the flavor to mix well
Since, I want to eat this that night.... I just placed it in the fridge for 30 minutes while I make my vegetable dish.
I always like to have a vegetable dish with my meal so I choose to make a simple stir fried baby bok choy with garlic.
First, add chop 5 cloves of garlic and toss it in the pan until it turns golden brown.
Then I rinsed the bok choy with water and tossed it into the pan once the garlic is brown. To keep this dish simple, I just added one teaspoon of salt, 1/2 a teaspoon of sugar and that's it. Wait until the color of the vegetable turn a bit dark green...... don't let it over cook though.
Once, everything is ready.... I plated onto my plate with some white rice.... yum-o! I was sooooo ready to dig in.
The spiciness of the pig's ear and the simple flavor from the bok choy compliments each other very well.
Hope you are all having a wonderful evening.
Bon Appetit!
<3 <3 <3
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