Instructions

How to choose the best pig ears: you should buy the white, fresh and thick pig ears from a qualified shop/stall to have a healthy food without any original doubt or anxiety.

You should shave all hair on pig ears carefully to have a smooth and clean texture. To eliminate the bad smell firstly, I carefully massaged them with much salt and vinegar, then wash them before cooking.

1. Boil the pig ears

• Prepare a saucepan with a bit of shallot, ginger and 2 tbsp vinegar, 2 tsp salt and 2 pig ears to boil.

• Put the saucepan in an oven to boil for 15 minutes only. Don’t boil so long because of decrease of pig ears’ crispness. This boiling step must ensure the pig ears are tender but still crispy. Let it cool and set aside.
• Drain pig ears out of the hot water to soak in a water bowl with some ice. Set aside for 10-15 minutes. You can also keep pig ears in the refrigerator for some minutes without soaking in the ice.

2. Prepare vegetables:

• Slice shallot and garlic, not thin slices, 3 slices each is better. Also slice lemongrass stalks and chili. Set aside.
• As the ingredient preparation, carrot and daikon have been cut into strips for pickling.

• The carrot and daikon strips marinated in 1 tsp salt are put in a mixing bowl to reduce the pungent smell of vegetables and mix well. Drain all of salt water out from this mixture after resting for some minutes. In another way, someone dries outside vegetable strips to get the lightly soft ones.

3. Prepare the vinegar mixture

• Pour 3 medium bowls of water into a saucepan, add 200g sugar, ½ bowl of vinegar, ½ bowl of fish sauce, 1 tbsp refined salt and stir well to boil them until the ingredients are melted. Let the mixture cool down completely. Ensure that it should have the sweet and sour taste.

4. Pickle the pig ears

• Cut pig ears into strips and place in a large bowl.

• Before soaking the strips in the vinegar mixture, I must mix 1 tbsp vinegar and 2 tsp salt and well crumble in order to avoid having sticky strips which cause the cloudy water in the mixture during pickling.
• Cleanly wash and drain all the strips in a colander just a moment. Place the strips in a large bowl to marinate the sliced vegetables in it and stir well.

• Pour the vinegar mixture to the bowl to ensure all the pig ears strips are completely submerged in the water.

5. Store the pickled pig ears for serving

• Prepare a clean jar to pickle all ingredients in it for serving.
• This dish should be stored in a refrigerator for eating in all week long.

• With a full flavor of sour, sweet, salt and spicy tastes, I have a delectable and appetizing food, the crispy pickled pig ears.