Pig Trotters in Tomato Sauce

What happened? Two babies happened. We are so happy for them, they really light up our days (and night!) They are God sent gift and we couldn’t be more grateful. Moving on, I have received so many emails from blogger friends and fellow Indonesian Chinese cuisine lovers and I must admit that I have not been cooking at all aside from blending mushy food for the babies. It is so easy – they never complain. But of course it would not be forever. I am contemplating on learning cooking Japanese food for them because it seems easy? It seems that way. Any thought?

Moving on to cooking. This pork dish is my favorite. Only a handful of restaurants serve it and then it is not always available. Mother always claims it is so easy to cook. But yeah, she never does until one day she decided it is time to teach me how to. It is so delicious, the gelatinous part of the trotter, the sweet sour and spicy sauce. It is basically a one dish meal.

We got one kg of pig trotter and cut into chunk sizes. Bone, skin, fat and all. Not a fan of anything relating to feet? Get pork belly or something like that. That would be a great substitute. Rub some coarse salt on the meat and rinse thoroughly with cold water.

Boil a big pot of water and add the chunks of meat into the boiling water. Blanch for 2-3 minutes and remove. Set aside for later use.

Prep ingredients for the dish. Some chili sauce, tomato sauce, shallots, garlic, bird’s eye chills, fresh tomatoes and tauco (or douchi, fermented and salted soy bean). The chili paste we used was homemade. We blended 200 g of red chili in a blender by adding a little bit of water. If you want the chili sauce to be not too spicy, get rid off the seeds before blending.

Combine fermented soy beans, garlic and shallot in a blender.

Blend till medium fine.

Heat some cooking oil in a thick based wok.

Stir-fry the tauco paste till fragrant, about 3-4 minutes over high heat, till it bubbles.

Don’t forget to stir quickly to avoid burning.

This is another ingredient that I forgot to include in the top image. The Chinese dark soy sauce is used, kecap manis (Indonesian sweet soy sauce) can be used as substitute, but it is really not the same.

Also cut up the tomatoes.

Back to stir-frying the paste. Keep stirring until the paste thickened.

Add chili paste into the wok. Lower the heat to medium at this point.

Stir-fry until the paste all blended, about 2 minutes.

Add tomato wedges into the wok. Cook till the tomatoes softened, sabot 3-5 minutes over medium heat.

Add the pork into the wok. That kinda rhymes.

Season with dark soy sauce.

A tablespoon of sugar. Or more if you wish.

Some tomato sauce. We used almost half a bottle of tomato sauce.

Stir well until all ingredients combined. Cook over high heat.

Lastly, add bird’s eye chili.

And some hot water.

Lastly, season with salt.

Cook until the sauce boiled up. Remove the dish to a non reactive pan.

Simmer over really low heat for 30-45 minutes. Serve piping hot over steamed rice.