Pot-stewed Chicken and Pig's Feet, 卤味卤猪蹄/卤味鸡

"This one's my favorite" - Everyone simultaneously

The foot is by far my favorite part of the pig. It is incredibly rich and flavorful from the mixture of fat and tendon falling off the bone. Add in a medley of spices and it becomes too addicting to have just one! This is worth a try, even if you’re not as familiar.

Ingredients 

• pig's feet aka pork knuckle, 卤猪蹄

• chicken drumsticks

• sliced ginger

• first batch of spices

  • 2 dried red chili pepper

  • 2 anise cloves

• soy sauce

• salt

• sugar

• Shao Xing cooking wine (绍兴酒)

• 1 green onion heads (the white part)

• 1 celery clover (large)

• 1 ginger (large)

• second round of spices

  • 1 tablespoon szechuan peppers (花椒)

  • tangerine peels

  • licorice (甘草)

  • 2 anise cloves

  • 3-4 dried red chili peppers

• crystal rock sugar

Note: oil that is dirtied by deep frying will need to be recycled. Restaurants commonly have an oil recycling provider but for personal use, check on options within your local community. 

Cooking Tools

• wok

• large bowl

• large pot

Steps

Clean the chicken drumsticks in cold water. Clean the pigs feet (卤猪蹄) in cold water.

Create a marinade for the chicken with 4 cloves of anise, 1 tablespoon of Szechuan pepper, 1 tablespoon of salt and enough water to cover the chicken.
Let the chicken and pig's feet soak in the marinade for 3 hours in the refrigerator.

Now to "clean" the meat, bring a pot to a boil with a few big chunks of ginger

Place the chicken and pigs feet (卤猪蹄) in the boiling water until it turns gray. Stir the meat in the water. The goal is not to cook the meat, but simply to clean it, remove the initial oils, and add a slight ginger flavor and scent. This step is brief (2 minutes for chicken, 4 minutes for pig's feet).

Drain the chicken and pigs feet (卤猪蹄). 

In a separate wok of hot cooking oil (65 deg C), deep fry the pigs feet (卤猪蹄), but not the chicken. Again, this step is brief (1-2 minutes for pig's feet). We do this to release the natural oils/fats from the pig's feet. The fat is dissolved into the deep frying oil and the remaining pig's feet is leaner. Look! less fat!

You can skip this step if you’re okay with the natural amount of fat in the feet.

Drain the pigs feet and set aside.

Now to the stir frying. Heat up a wok, and then add a little oil. Start by stir frying ginger, green onion heads, a couple chili peppers and anis cloves. Stir fry for 10 seconds.

Add the szechuan peppers (花椒). Stir fry for 10 seconds.

Add white onion, celery, tangerine peels, anise cloves, dried red peppers and licorice.

Add 4 splashes of cooking wine (1/4 bottle), soy sauce (1/2 bottle) and salt. 

Add enough water to cover the pigs feet (卤猪蹄) and chicken. Bring it to a boil without the meats.

At this point, we transferred everything into a large pot.

Place the chicken drumsticks and pig's feet into the broth slowly.

Add 4 heaping tablespoons of sugar.

Add a handful of crystal sugar.

Bring it to a boil first on high heat. Then turn the heat to low and cook for 45 minutes until meat is tender. The chicken will finish cooking sooner than the pig's feet. Check the chicken to see if it's done, and remove first. Cook the pig's feet for an additional 20 minutes until it is done.

Enjoy!