Mom’s Cooking 3 - Pork Feet Stew (Cu Kiok)

Pork Feet Stew
Pork Feet stew (Cu Kiok) is another old time favorite that my mom cooked during my visit; it’s another dish that I will probably never cook on my own since I’ll never get it right even if I try. It’s one of those dishes that is good to have once in a while, although the pork feet and the pork feet skin are supposed to be good for your joints - according to my mother that is - again, there’s no scientific proof whatsoever of this claim. This is another reason why I love mom’s cooking: there’s often a fascinating story or some kind of outlandish claim behind the delicious food that she prepares – I find it quite entertaining.

Pork feet I can tolerate, in fact, the stew sauce is quite tasty to have with a bowl of rice. Chicken feet on the other hand, that’s something else. The claws scare me. I can’t never ever, enjoy eating chicken feet (I tasted a very small bite one time at a dim sum, but really disliked even the texture of it). Some people love it though and I applaud them (since that means that they’re not scared of the claws). Plus, I heard that those chicken feet (supposedly) are good for your joints and cartilage.

Basic Ingredients:
1) Pork feet and thigh meat
2) Dark soy sauce
3) Garlic
4) Star anise
5) Brown sugar or kecap manis (sweet soy sauce)
6) Salt and pepper

Direction (roughly):
Rinse pork feet and meat with boiled water and set aside. Saute pork feet and meat with garlic until fragrant, add soy sauce and sweet soy sauce or sugar, a dash of salt and white pepper, water and star anise and cook on medium heat until boiled and lower heat and simmer for a few hours until the meat falls off the bones.