To make this dish, chef de cuisine Erik Ramirez cures pig tails for an hour in salt, then rinses them and slowly confits them in rendered fatback cut with some vegetable oil and flavored with garlic, thyme, bay leaf, shallot and black peppercorn at 225 degrees Fahrenheit for three to four hours. He removes them from the oil, lets them cool, and cuts them into bite-sized pieces.
Ramirez then makes a dressing of soy sauce, Chinese black vinegar, an unrefined Peruvian brown sugar called chancaca, cilantro, Thai chiles, rice vinegar and lime juice.
At service, Ramirez deep fries the pig tails. Then he douses them in the dressing and sprinkles them with a mixture of coarsely ground, toasted peppercorn and coriander seeds, along with cilantro and Thai chiles.
He sells the crispy pig tails as an appetizer with five to six pieces for $6.
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Contact Bret Thorn at bret.thorn@penton.com.
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