CONFINEMENT RECIPE: PIG TROTTERS WITH VINEGAR AND GINGER

Pig trotters with vinegar and ginger is a traditional confinement dish which can help to warm the body and replenishes blood. Confinement period is a golden opportunity for women to recuperate and rebuild her body constitution after giving birth. Of course, it can also be consumed by the whole family during ordinary days. As for me, I simply love the sweet and sour taste of the vinegar (I actually prefer drinking the soup more than eating the trotters itself :P) 

Though I like eating this dish, I've never tried cooking it in the past before because it seemed kinda complicated. I've heard and read some recipes that require mixing two different types of vinegar to get the right taste >.< I usually order this dish in restaurants but it's quite hard to get nice ones. It's either too sour, too watery or comes with dried chilies. That was til a little while ago that I found out about this nice black vinegar from the cooking group I was in. A lady from the same group was selling it. Heard quite a few good reviews so I decided to buy and try. Indeed, it was good! With this bottle of vinegar, I didn't have to add anything else, well, practically. Haha! Mine has black beans in it. You don't have to add them but I like the one cooked by my hubby's auntie. Her version has them and I love eating them too. The beans weren't as soft as I expected in my first try, so for this time, I boiled them for a while before adding them to cook together with the trotters. I absolutely loved it! Hubby even had two servings of rice coz he said it was sooo good :D 

Sweet, sour and full of ginger aroma :)

Now I can cook this at home whenever I want!

 Ingredients:

With just these few ingredients. You could add some gula Melaka or palm sugar if you like, but I thought the vinegar was sweet enough :)

• Approx 750g pig trotters, cleaned and cut into pieces
• 150g Bentong ginger
• 100g black beans
• 1 bottle of sweetened black vinegar
• Sesame oil, for stir-frying
• 2 cups of water

1. Rinse and drain black beans. Heat wok and fry the black beans without oil til the skin cracks. Add the black beans into boiling water. Turn to low heat and simmer for about 30 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside, retaining the water in which the beans were boiled.
2. Blanch trotters in boiling water for 5 minutes. Rinse and set aside. (This is a must to remove scum or any unwanted residues).
3. Clean ginger, scrap off the skin, cut into chunks and flatten them with the back of the knife.
4. Heat sesame oil in a wok and sauté ginger til fragrant. Add the blanched trotters and fry til fragrant.
5. Transfer everything to a pot. Add the black beans in together with the remaining water and pour in the whole bottle of sweetened black vinegar. Bring to a boil. (If you prefer a sweeter taste, you can add in some Gula Melaka). Turn to low heat and simmer til the trotter is tender (About an hour). Turn off the heat and leave it there covered for at least 2 hours, to allow the trotters to completely absorb the flavor. Just reheat before serving.