Bruno Loubet's trotters

Ingredients

(for 30 trotters)

Thirty trotters cleaned singed and boned-out to give a flat sheet of meat that can be reformed

For the farce
750g onions finely chopped
15 cloves of garlic crushed
500g smoked bacon finely chopped
5 pigs' kidneys finely chopped
4.5kg coarsely minced pork (from the collar and about 1/3 fat to 2/3 lean)
30 leaves of fresh sage chopped
8 eggs
15 slices of white bread soaked in chicken stock
A quantity of crépine (caul fat) and string.

For the braise
Mirepoix of vegetables made from carrot celery onions and garlic
5 bay leaves
5 sprigs of fresh thyme
10cl Worcestershire sauce
4 x 200g tins of Hoisin sauce
1 litre red wine vinegar
500g tomato ketchup
250g tomato paste
Chicken stock to cover

Method

To make the farce first sweat the onions garlic and bacon in a little oil. Cool.

Sweat the pigs' kidney in a little oil. Cool. Then mix all the farce ingredients together thoroughly.

Stuff each trotter and roll up into a trotter shape wrap in crépine and secure with string.

Put the trotters in a deep roasting tin then make up the braise by mixing all the ingredients together.

Cover the trotters with the braise. Cook slowly in a low oven for two-and-a-half hours.

Strain off the braising liquid pass and reduce. As it is to be reduced again take the sauce about half-way towards the consistency you want for your finished sauce.

To serve reheat each trotter in the sauce and allow it to colour and glaze as it heats through.

During this process finish reducing the sauce to the desired consistency and adjust the seasoning.

At L'Odéon the trotter is then plated with mashed potato.