China · Sichuan
Chengdu Pig's Trotter and White Bean Soup
Pork trotters and white kidney beans pressure-cooked to a milky broth, with a sharp garlic and chilli dipping sauce on the side.
The white soup is the whole reputation of this dish, and it depends on the beans having been soaked overnight so the collagen and the starch emulsify together. Adding more water mid-cook is the cardinal sin here, because cold water clouds the broth and no amount of stirring brings the colour back. The dipping sauce carries as much weight as the soup, and Sichuan cooks make it to taste rather than by any fixed measure.
Ingredients
- pig's trotters3 pieces
- white kidney beans200 g
- angelica root2 g
- white pepper5 g
- ginger slices30 g
- minced garlic8 g
- chicken bouillon2 g
- light soy sauce25 g
- chopped spring onion10 g
Directions
- 1
Soak 200 g white kidney beans in cold water the night before.
- 2
Get front trotters and ask the butcher to split them down the middle; remove the hair follicles with a torch and wash them at home.
- 3
Put the trotters, lengths of leek, ginger slices and cooking wine into cold water and blanch for 10 minutes, skimming off the foam, then lift out and wash.
- 4
Put the trotters, angelica root, angelica dahurica, white pepper and ginger slices in the pressure cooker and cook for 30 minutes once it comes up to pressure. Add the white kidney beans and cook for another 10 minutes. If the broth is milky white at this point, you have it right; if you need to top it up mid-way, only ever add hot water.
- 5
Take off the lid and season with salt, chicken bouillon and chopped spring onion.
- 6
Mix the dipping sauce that makes the dish: scallion, garlic, bird's eye chili, white pepper, light soy sauce, black vinegar, chilli oil, Sichuan peppercorn oil and a little of the trotters' own broth.
- 7
Dip the trotters in that sauce and eat.
Source: HowToCook · WorldBite adaptation · Unlicense source text; bilingual recipe adapted by WorldBite.