Continuing with the whole animal theme this summer I give you a tasty little number here for pig ears. Yes the ears. Not just for dog chewies anymore. Now there are a lot of ways you can go about this. They have to be boiled first to make them tender enough to eat. You can do this in just water or a court bouillon. The CB depends on you, there are hundreds or combinations, but for this recipe, simple water works well enough. You want to simmer them long enough to have the skin peel off them.
Here I am peeling off the skin dramatically to show you where you want the ears. You don’t want to remove the skin. This took about an hour and a half. Keep the liquid for stock later. Once the ears are poached, place them on a piece of parchment paper on a plate. Place another piece on top of the ears and put a plate on top of that and chill for a few hours. Next make a hot wing sauce by combining butter to your favorite hot sauce and whisking together over medium heat.
When your ears have cooled julienne them and coat with corn starch.
Why corn starch and not flour? It will add a crispiness and thicken the sauce as well, learn a lesson or two of simplicity from that ;local Chinese place down the street form you. Next get a saute pan and coat the bottom with about a half inch of oil and get it smoking hot. Drop in your shredded ears. Toss until crispy and I mean crispy! Remove form the heat and place on a paper towel to drain. Next up Julienne some veges. I used green and yellow squash and carrots as they are what I had laying around. 
If you have a mandolin this takes a few seconds, if not, get that chefs knife out and get to slicing bitch! Heat up your wing sauce (hold the coke el wingador) and toss your ears in the sauce until they absorb the sauce, this is the secret of good wing joints. They just do not toss the product with the sauce. Next get a leaf of lettuce and place a pile of your vegetables on and top with some ears. Roll that shit up and eat it like you are on the streets of PR, cheers.
i heard that pig ears taste like bacon. is that right?
No not at all, it is like when people say that alligator and rattle snake taste like chicken, they do not, they taste like alligator and snake. The ears are a lot less flavorful than bacon because you have to boil them to break down the cartilage to be a able to eat them. Second they do not get to develop a flavor like bacon does from their location on the animal. This is why I did the recipe that I did, to add another layer oflavor to the ears. Do not get me wrong pig ears are wonderful (as are deep fried chicken feet) but not the same as bacon. Feel free to steal this recipe if you need to for your blog and anyone out there who would like to see more offal cooked should check out Offallygood.
Thanks very much! I think I’m going to experiment tomorrow evening. I’ll let you know the results. offallygood.wordpress.com
Please do
poached my ears with lovage – currently being pressed in the fridge for tomorrow!
Can’t wait to see the results, and I am certain that it will please you as well
[...] You may remember that I postulated that my off the cuff whim of buying pig’s ears might result in a pig’s ear carbonara from the Foodie Penpals Recipe … well, Crispy Pig’s Ear Salad is not that. Mostly because I kept coming across people saying how good crispy pig’s ears are. (You know who you are, Brian.) [...]
first set of experiments!
http://offallygood.wordpress.com/2012/07/15/crispy-auricular-salad/
Nice Job. Slowly becoming one of my favorite blogs. Here in the city of brotherly love offal is really coming into vogue. You are knocking it out of the park.