Souse

Name: Souse
Total time: 2 h 30 min
Cuisine: Trinidad and Tobago
Ingredients: 450g (1lb) pig's feet; as available lime juice, for soaking; to taste green seasoning; 2 cloves garlic; as available onion; enough to cover cold water; 1 medium, sliced onion, sliced; 1 green hot pepper hot pepper, chopped; 10 leaves chadon beni, blended with 1 pimento pepper chadon beni and pepper green seasoning; juice of 3 limes fresh lime juice; to taste salt

Trinidad and Tobago

Souse, pickled pig trotter in lime and cucumber: chunks of pale, glistening pickled pig trotter in a cloudy lime coloured brine, thin sliced onion floating throughout, a few dark flecks of chadon beni and chopped hot pepper scattered on top.

Illustration

Time: 2 hours 30

Researched: Researched from 79 sources in the brief

by Trinidad and Tobago

Provisioning under slavery in Trinidad and Tobago followed the pattern documented right across the plantation Caribbean: the estate kept the animal's better cuts, and the enslaved were left the offal, trotters, tails, blood, and land marginal enough that a household could be trusted to feed itself on it without competing with the cash crop. Pemberton's account of Tobago's provision-ground system, mandated by the Tobago House of Assembly for every enslaved worker over fourteen, gives this a documented mechanism: the land allocation was explicitly a food-security response to plantation-supply shortages linked to slave revolts elsewhere in the Americas. Souse and black pudding, both built from the trotter, the blood and the intestine, read straightforwardly against this history.

Read the history

As tradition built it

Souse

Trinidad and Tobago; pressure-cooked roughly 30 minutes, then pickled cold at least 2 hours

Ingredients

Pig's feet

450g (1lb) pig's feet
as available lime juice, for soaking
to taste green seasoning
2 cloves garlic
as available onion

Cold pickle

enough to cover cold water
1 medium, sliced onion, sliced
1 green hot pepper hot pepper, chopped
10 leaves chadon beni, blended with 1 pimento pepper chadon beni and pepper green seasoning
juice of 3 limes fresh lime juice
to taste salt

Method

Clean the pig's feet and soak in water with lime juice.
Season with green seasoning, garlic and onion, then pressure-cook roughly 30 minutes until the meat falls from the bone.
Wash the meat three times to remove excess oil, and cool.
Combine the cooled meat with cold water, sliced onion, chopped hot pepper, a chadon beni and pepper green seasoning, fresh lime juice and salt.
Marinate at least 2 hours before serving. This is a genuinely pickled rather than stewed dish, and serving it warm defeats the point of it.

What a modern chef changes

Trotter Aspic, Dehydrated Cucumber Ribbons

Rung 05

Method

Reserve and clarify the pressure-cooker liquid through a chinois, then set it, chilled, into a clean, lightly jellied aspic around the meat using the trotter's own natural gelatine, rather than discarding that liquid as most home versions do.
Cure the cucumber separately as a quick pickle before assembly.
Dehydrate a portion of the cucumber into crisp ribbons for texture contrast against the soft, pickled meat.

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