Wait...Is That A Pigs Trotter?

Last night I cooked a pigs trotter.

There. I feel much better now. I know that you won’t all sit in judgement of me, particularly after your bolstering Tapioca comments.
The thing is, I have this nasty habit of buying offal based products, cooking them but being too squeamish to eat them. I have chicken livers in the freezer. I actually like liver but I haven’t ever eaten chicken livers and now I’m worried that they’ve been in the freezer for too long and that they’ll be all desiccated.
To be fair, I did think that the pigs trotter would be a little more appetising than it actually was. I could get over the little bristles on its ankles and the gelatinous rind if there was actually any sweet morsel of meat underneath. But there was nothing. Just gristle and bone. I know. I’m a coward but so is my husband! I put the trotter on his plate and I saw him just looking mournfully at it, thinking “I have to eat some of this to save face but I don’t think I can.”
And, he poked at the trotter and then ate some more of his dinner and then prodded the trotter, but not one morsel of trotter meat passed his lips.
Coney had a very tasty snack last night.
What all of this rambling preamble leads to though is really just an amusing side-note to last nights dinner, which was Jerk Chicken with Caribbean Rice and Peas.
You may recall from an earlier post of Pauls that he mentions my grandparents demanding Jerked Pork. In preparation for this feast (I have a wonderfully huge fillet of pork, bought from Well Hung Meat last month sitting in the freezer, just waiting to be jerked around), I decided to have a test run with the spice mix, ensuring it wasn’t too hot and so forth. What looks good cooked by Ainsley Harriott on TV might just be too much for them to stand in real life, after all, they are OAPs.
So, utilising my Elisabeth Luard book, the Latin American Kitchen, once again, I used her recipe for Jerk Seasoning with Allspice and applied it to a couple of Corn Fed Organic Chicken Breasts.
The spice rub consisted of quite a few ingredients, thankfully all of which I had in my overflowing drawers (no snarky comments, please), except for the dried onion and I simply replaced that with fresh shallot instead.
I love marinating food. I love squishing the bronze coloured spices into the raw meat, and the expectation of the flavoursome, juicy meat that follows is almost too much to bear.

But bear it I did. I prepared the spice rub in the morning, marinated the meat at lunch time and cooked it for supper, the rub turning the skin blackened and spicy, the meat remaining moist and toothsome.
The Caribbean Peas and Rice were made utilising another one of my samples from Natco, Pigeon Peas (also known as Gunga or Gungo Pea, Congo Pea and, rather charmingly, No-Eyed Pea).
The Pigeon Pea was first cultivated over 3000 years ago in Asia and Africa but didn’t reach the Americas until the dismal days of slave trading. They are still incredibly popular in India, and are usually served split, Toor Daal.
Like all legumes, the Pigeon Pea is nutritionally important, being high in protein and amino acids (including my husbands favourite, tryptophan).
In the Western world, Pigeon Pies are most famously seen in this dish, a traditional combination of the dried pea, Basmati Rice and Coconut Milk. Sometimes the rice is replaced with beans, sometimes some salt pork is added.
To shake things up a bit (and because it was taking up precious room in the freezer), I decided to throw in the trotter to add flavour to the rice and peas. I suspect that some salt pork would certainly have added better flavour and been more palatable but there you go.
Warmed up with a couple of Habanero Chilis (I put only one in originally, thought it wasn’t hot enough so threw in another for company – that heated things up somewhat) and seasoned with some dried thyme, onion, garlic and plenty of salt, it was a tasty way to serve peas and rice and a perfect, pale match for the chicken.
If you want to replicate the peas and rice at home, I think that you could omit the trotter without much recourse, although a chunk of ham wouldn’t go amiss. I would suggest a final sprinkling of some chopped spring onion to lift the whole dish though.
JERK CHICKEN serves 2
Ingredients:

Spice Rub (this made more than enough for just the two of us, we put ours in a jar for future usage).
1 Tbsp. Ground Allspice
1 Tbsp. Ground Ginger
1 Tbsp. Dried Thyme
1 Tsp. Sea Salt
1 Tsp. Cayenne Pepper
1 Tsp. Sugar
1/2 Tsp. Ground White Pepper
1/2 Tsp. Ground Cinnamon
For the Chicken
1 Small Shallot, finely chopped
1 Clove Garlic, finely chopped
2 Organic Chicken Breasts, skin on (this is very important to ensure your chicken is moist)
Juice of One Lime (although I used lemon because I was out of limes)
Good slug Olive Oil
METHOD:

Mix together all the dry ingredients.

Place the chicken breasts in a ziplock bag a couple of tablespoons of the dry rub, the lime or lemon juice, oil, garlic and shallot and mix well. Leave to chill for at least 4 hours.
To cook, preheat a griddle until really, really hot and place the breasts (obviously removed from the bag), skin down on the griddle. Cook for about 15 minutes or so, turning halfway. You may need to turn the heat down a touch if the jerk seasoning looks as if it is going just a touch too black.
Serve with Jamaican Peas and Rice.
JAMAICAN PEAS AND RICE - serves 2
Ingredients:
125g Pigeon Peas, soaked overnight or for at least 8 hours
125g Basmati Rice
1 Can Coconut Milk
2 Cloves chopped Garlic
1 Small Onion, finely chopped
Salt pork (optional)
1 Teaspoon Dried Thyme
Seasoning
METHOD:
Drain the soaked peas and place in a large saucepan with the dried thyme, garlic, onion and salt pork if using.
Cover with water, about an inch or so above the ingredients.
Bring to the boil, cover and reduce heat to a gentle simmer.
After 40 minutes, stir in the coconut milk and the rice.
Replace the lid and cook for another 20 minutes or until the rice and beans are both tender.
Taste for seasoning, you will probably need a good couple of teaspoons of salt.
Serve with the Jerk Chicken and enjoy...