Recipe: Pork Feet and Meatballs Stew

1 Rinse the pork feet and pork shoulder roast with cold water.

2 Place them in a large pot with the salt, pepper, bay leaves, quartered onions, and 2.1 qt (2 liters) of water.

3 Simmer over very low heat for 2 to 3 hours until the meat detaches easily from the bones. If the liquid level drops too much, add water during cooking as you need to maintain about 1.1 qt (1 liter) of broth or 4 cups.

4 Remove the meat to debone it while still hot. Keep the onions, discard the bay leaves, and let cool for 1 hour, then refrigerate for 2 hours.

5 Strain the broth and decrease it. Let cool and reserve in the refrigerator.

6 While everything is in the fridge, prepare the meatballs. In a large bowl, place the ground pork, ground beef, diced onion, ground cloves, ground cinnamon, ground ginger, mustard powder, salt, pepper, oatmeal, and 0.5 cup (120 ml) of water.

7 Mix with your clean hands to thoroughly combine all ingredients and form a homogeneous mixture.

8 Form small meatballs about 1 cm in diameter.

9 In your large pot, pour the pork broth completely, even if it's more than 1.1 qt (1 liter), as you need to reach 2.1 qt (2 liters) or 8 cups of liquid. To do this, add water with chicken bouillon powder (1.5 fl oz (45 ml) or 3 tbsp) or good homemade chicken broth. Bring to a rolling boil.

10 Add the meatballs one at a time, never stirring.

11 Once all meatballs are in the broth, reduce heat to medium for 30 minutes.

12 Remove from heat, let cool, then place the meatballs on top of the deboned meat.

13 Gently add toasted flour by sprinkling it slowly over the broth and whisk. Simmer for 5 minutes as it will thicken your sauce, then reduce until you reach the desired consistency.

14 Taste and adjust seasoning as needed with salt, pepper, cloves, cinnamon, mustard, or ginger. Simmer for another 10 minutes.

15 Add the meat and meatballs, simmer for another 10 minutes until everything is hot.

16 Serve with mashed potatoes or small baby potatoes cooked in the sauce. To do this, take some sauce, pour it into a pot, add your potatoes, and cook them in it.

N.B. Do not cook potatoes directly with the meat unless you're certain everything will be eaten.