I wonder of some recipes of how they have disappeared, as there being multi millions of pigs produced from China to America, how it is this splendid dish has not been served......well the Obama horde at 1600 Penn Avenue by Rick Bayless for example.
Pigs are odd things, in one scalds them they say, and then scrapes the hide of hair. I have had pig skin gloves and they really do not last that well, and have all those little pig hair holes in the leather.
In that, pigs ears have hair on them, and I suppose ear wax and whatever else pigs produce, so the following recipe does not seem to indicate the process of making the pig's ear palatable.
I know Laura Little House Ingalls thought fried hog tails were a treat, and the Southerner eats those things in a bag made of hide, so perhaps something might be said of pig's ears if prepared correctly.....although hog rinds or whatever they are have never been prepared correctly for me where I did not say "YUCK".
Apparently this is like Pigs Ears in Gravy. I assume one pre cleans them and removes the hair and offal, and then boils them up in a wine and water pickling.
I have eaten wine, and while I appreciate drinking wine, I do not like wine in my meat or ears so to speak, but as this is the recipe one boils this cartiledge up and it apparently tenderizes them, whereby in pieces you fry them up in butter.
I wonder why not hogs lard as they are pigs, but maybe is like not boiling a kid in it's own mother's milk as in cooking a pig in their own fat.
I do not know where the gravy appears from, unless it is flour thickened wine and water pig ear drippings.....but one adds that nice strong fish taste of anchovies which is again something I am not fond of, as if I want fish taste I eat sardines or tuna fish, which is a rare thing.
I can reason that browned cartiledge would perhaps be tasty, and if one covered it all up with mustard and nutmeg, as nothing can get through that combination, with a little fish taste, it might be just the thing like sardines in mustard sauce...with a bit of the nutmeg.
I hope I am never hungry enough to resort to eating pig's ears, but it is nice to know that there is a recipe for it........then again in a Hawaiian pig roast or when I have seen whole pigs roasted up, they leave the ears on them, so maybe that is the delicacy on the platter.......still think it must taste piggy like those pork rind things.
Anyway bon appetite
To make a Ragoo of Pigs-Ears:—Take a quantity of pigs-ears, and boil them in one half wine and the other water; cut them in small pieces, then brown a little butter, and put them in, and a pretty deal of gravy, two anchovies, an eschalot or two, a little mustard, and some slices of lemon, some salt, and nutmeg; stew all these together, and shake it up thick.
agtG
