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Pigs ears?

brawblether

Active Member
Time of past OR future Camino
June/Jul 2012; Feb 2014
I stopped into a bar in Navarette at lunch today and choose the only thing on offer which didn't have sea food in it (can't eat it) which was a pig dish. They were flat pieces of meat, quite dark, and skewered together. Not bad tasting but I couldn't handle the texture, it was soft, not slimy but slippery, and a bit fatty. I had trouble eating it but needed to have something and when I went to take the next piece I had a closer look...I am fairly sure they were pigs ears! Does anyone know if that is likely? Although I couldn't really eat it I still want to tell my friends I ate pigs ears If that's indeed what they were ;-)
 
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Part of cocido maragato (mine had TWO ears):
Maragato Stew - Cocido Maragato

This succulent stew is typical of the Maragatería district to the northwest of Astorga close to the mountains of León. The story goes that, unlike elsewhere in Spain, the locals used to serve the soup at the end of the meal in case they were attacked by the Moors and had to give it as miss, so that they would at least have eaten the most nourishing part of the meal--the meat, chickpeas and vegetables.

Makes 10 servings.

Prep Time: 45 min. plus soaking time

Cook Time: 3 hr.

Ingredients:
10 oz cured pork shoulder
10 oz cured and dried beef (cecina) or Jamón Serrano
1 lb 2 oz beef shank
1 front quarter of a stewing hen
1 pig's ear
3.5 oz salt pork
2 chorizos
4 small potatoes
1 lb 2 oz cabbage
14 oz chickpeas
1 leek
2 carrots
Salt, parsley
10 oz vermicelli
Dumplings:
3 eggs
Bread crumbs
2 oz Jamón Serrano
Chorizo from the stew
1 clove garlic
Salt
1 stewing hen liver, bought separately
 
Yup. They're real ears, alright.
I have had them twice, and decided they're one food I can live without.
But the Spanish sure seem to relish them!
 
Fans of pig ears and every other bit of the pig will likely enjoy John Barlow's book, Everything but the Squeal: A Year of Pigging out in Northern Spain, which has great accounts of rural Galicia and its plethora of pig-related fiestas. I didn't like pigs' ears either, but they (and the feet) were once traditional delicacies in the Ottawa valley (and can still be found pickled in jars in certain bars) so I was not surprised by them when they appeared in my cocido maragato in IIRC Rabanal. I confirmed with the waitress that they were pigs' ears and she agreed with me that they were Muy interresante.
 
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The focus is on reducing the risk of failure through being well prepared. 2nd ed.
 
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There's a well known place in Madrid that specializes in pig's ears. I liked them - maybe a little crunchy from the cartilage, but my daughter passed on them. I believe they're a regional specialty.
 
I have eaten them in in a well known Pulpo restaurant in Arca, and found them tasteless and tough, but with a liberal dose of herbs, they taste slightly better. By coincidence I saw them for sale at a local butcher's yesterday and on enquiring if anyone bought them I was told that they are for pets and dogs love them
 
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I had pig's ears at the truck stop/bar as you enter Villafranca Montes de Oca. Yuck!!!!!! and I like almost everything.
Dayton
 
Pigs ears (oreja) is usually served at bars specialized in raciones/tapas. It is not common to find oreja in menus.
In Galicia and Asturias the pig head (cacheira) is also eaten. But in this case is almost imposible to find it in menus and raciones/tapas.
 
..... and I really enjoy pigs' cheeks which are tender and sweet. Different cultures use different parts of animals, but we are seeing them come more and more across the Channel into UK butchers.
An example might be chickens feet/claws which are now seen in somelocal supermarkets. I have NO idea what meat or taste you get from a chicken's claw
 
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PIGS EARS........................................PARDON !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
with a liberal dose of herbs, they taste slightly better
Click to expand...
That is true of many dishes in the "eat every bit of the animal" cuisines. Chicken feet (Chinese mostly). Ox tail. Pig feet. Pig ear. Veal hoof. All are mostly fat, bone, skin, or gristle, so it takes a good sauce to make them delectable (oxymoron?).
 
Nigella Lawson recommends chopping them up fine and deep frying.

I was lucky (?) enough to be in the mountains of eastern France for the autumn pig slaughter where each household kills its pig and renders it into supplies to last all winter. Fresh boudin noir... heaven! It's not a pleasant sight as the pigs are/were slaughtered at home. Highly illegal to do that in the UK now (which has killed off "real" black pudding production) so dont know if the rest of the EU is the same. It was a real experience and if you're going to be a carnivore then should be compulsory to watch.
 
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Yep, pigs ears on the menu sounds reasonable to me. In a great stew with lots of fantastic vegetables and delicious broth, some beans and bacon thrown in for good measure, YUM (or maybe I'm just channeling some childhood memories from my grandmother's kitchen). A bit of sherry might cut some of the "fatty" taste, if you want.
Falcon, I'm trying to figure out how to print out that recipe.
 
StuartM said:
the autumn pig slaughter ...
Click to expand...

Brrrh…
I remember a pig's slaughter in my aunt's house when I was a child; a not really lovely experience.
All those bins and pans with blood, meet, brain etc everywhere in the house during the next 48 hours…

And I remember to have eaten cross pigs' skin in Brazil (Minas Gerais), which was a local dish there.
It was not my favorite plate, I must admit.
 
Stephen Nicholls said:
..... ...........
An example might be chickens feet/claws which are now seen in somelocal supermarkets. I have NO idea what meat or taste you get from a chicken's claw
Click to expand...
I have no idea what they taste like either, but they were one of the 'try it out on the new teacher' gags when I first started work. Forewarned I took a chicken's foot of my own to school that my husband had from the farm where he worked. Mine still had the guiders in so, in class, when they took out their chicken foot (obtained from the local factory) I asked if it still worked because mine did, and showed them. Teacher wins round 1
Haven't eaten pigs ears either, but the bladder used to make a good football (according to my husband).
 
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Anyone know how to make a sow's purse now?
 
My dog, Jasper, rather enjoys pig ears. I'll have them on my upcoming Camino. Or, maybe not.
 
Camino Way markers in Bronze
The one from Galicia (the round) and the one from Castilla & Leon. Individually numbered and made by the same people that make the ones you see on your walk.
I know that pig ears are rather unpopular in English speaking countries from the comments on a Pilot Guides programme about Spain some years ago (the presenter was in a bar in Santiago talking about tapas).
But, to my surprise the newspaper The Telegraph has included pig ears (and Galician meet) among the big food trends of 2016.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/food-and...les-to-pigs-ears-the-big-food-trends-of-2016/
I wonder if the Camino has anything to do with that change.
 
Pig ears taste is really interesting, I have chance to try it for 2 times.
 
I received a mild scolding in a supermarket on the Camino Portugues a couple of days ago. Seems I was not to take photos of the frozen pig's noses. If I had to choose I'd take ears every time.
 

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Mcmahoney22 said:
There's a well known place in Madrid that specializes in pig's ears. I liked them - maybe a little crunchy from the cartilage, but my daughter passed on them. I believe they're a regional specialty.
Click to expand...
My partner celebrated the birthday in this place in Goya. They were all mad about it.
 
Bradypus said:
View attachment 24262 I received a mild scolding in a supermarket on the Camino Portugues a couple of days ago. Seems I was not to take photos of the frozen pig's noses. If I had to choose I'd take ears every time.
Click to expand...

How 'bout a whole head (at the market in Santiago de Compostella)?
 

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Reminds me of the old and tasteless Scottish joke about going to the butcher's shop to buy a sheep's head to make broth: "Please leave the eyes in, it'll see me through the weekend"
 
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Ideal sleeping bag liner whether we want to add a thermal plus to our bag, or if we want to use it alone to sleep in shelters or hostels. Thanks to its mummy shape, it adapts perfectly to our body.

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C3 to Camino said:
How 'bout a whole head (at the market in Santiago de Compostella)?
Click to expand...

The whole head is called "cacheira".
It is usually eaten in Galicia with "cachelos" (boiled potatoes).
It used to be a very apreciated dish for many people but now I think that is out of fashion and very difficult to find in restaurants.
 
Whole roasted pig's head used to be a feature of Christmas feasts in medieval Britain. There is a famous "Boar's Head Carol" which I think came originally from one of the Oxford or Cambridge colleges. Sung to a really good tune
 
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Bradypus said:
Whole roasted pig's head used to be a feature of Christmas feasts in medieval Britain. There is a famous "Boar's Head Carol" which I think came originally from one of the Oxford or Cambridge colleges. Sung to a really good tune
Click to expand...

And appart from those feasts I think that in famine periods didn´t through it away either
 
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Pelegrin said:
And appart from those feasts I think that in famine periods didn´t through it away either
Click to expand...

Indeed - eat everything but the squeal! Just before flying home this week I walked through a market in A Coruna. Several butchers stalls selling every part of the pig including the head. One stall had large plastic boxes filled with all the parts from one individual animal that other countries might be too squeamish to display: head (chopped into parts), feet, tail, tongue, lungs, penis and ears. The intestines would be used for sausage skins and blood for morcilla. Almost nothing wasted. Being so provident might have been born out of necessity but it has also given us a marvellous variety of foods to try. If we have the stomach for it
 
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