SC - bourreys

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Mordonna22 at aol.com wrote:
> 
> In a message dated 11/19/2000 12:25:13 AM US Mountain Standard Time,
> owner-Beatrix writes:
> 
> <<  Given the choice in a meat recipe I'd
>  lean toward the diaphragm more that ears, they being nothing more than
>  cartilage. I'm not a word scholar by any means, but why would you put pork
>  ears in a stew- even chopped small, wouldn't they be kinda chewy?
>  Beatrix >>
> 
> It may have been for the thickening property of the cartilage.  I know that
> when my German-American in-laws butchered a hog, the entire head went into
> the pot with all the organ meats, thusly:

Something's been tickling in the back of my head for a few days now on
this subject...

Pigs ears do contain cartilage, and cartilage is not collagen, which is
what cooks in liquid to form a gelatinous solution (a.k.a. stock) and a
softer, less dense piece of collagen. Unless I've been exposed
repeatedly to mutant pig's ears, what they amount to is a layer of
cartilage, essentially a sheet, between two layers of skin. Yes, they
will thicken a stock by adding gelatin to it, but the cartilage in the
ears doesn;t get especially soft, unless perhaps the rules change after
boiling them for perhaps 12 hours or something; I've never tried that. 

What I have done with pig's ears is simmer them (and a snout or two) in
a court-boullion and eat them shredded in a salad with things like
rice-wine vinegar, sugar, hot peppers, scallion, shredded raw carrots
and white icicle radish (I'm blanking out on the commonly-used Japanese
name for this last ingredient). The skin of the ears does become
gelatinous, but overall they are distinctly crunchy.

Pig's ears are pretty good fried, too, but the salad used to be my
father-in-law's favorite, whenever he could catch me and prevent my
adding a dash of sesame oil (which the Cantonese seem to tend to loathe)
to the sauce.
 
Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com