Old Lady's Trotter Bone Soup (Laoma Tirehua)
Old Lady's Trotter Bone Soup (Laoma Tirehua) is a home-style meat dish at difficulty 4/5 (Advanced), about 1425 kcal. The soup is milky white, the trotters are soft and fall off the bone, the textur. Ingredients and step-by-step instructions are below, with notes for home cooking.
4 / 5
★★★★☆
1425 kcal
Ingredients
- Pig trotters (try to choose pig front trotters: more meat, more tendons, fewer bones)
- Scallion
- Ginger
- Cooking wine
- L soy sauce
- Angelica (optional)
- Chicken bouillon/MSG
- Salt
- Garlic
- Little chili peppers (Suan La Jiao)
- White pepper powder
- L soy sauce
- Balsamic vinegar
- Sesame oil
- Ground chili oil (ground peppercorn chili oil) (optional)
- Round white beans (butter beans) (can substitute with kelp if unavailable)
Steps
- ### Getting Started
- Soak 200g of white beans in cold water overnight and set aside.
- Prepare the pig trotters. Ask the butcher to cut them in half at the market. Use a blowtorch to remove the hair/follicles, then wash them thoroughly when you get home.
- Add the trotters, large scallion sections, ginger slices, and cooking wine to a pot. Bring to a boil with cold water, blanch for 10 minutes, skim off the foam, and set aside to wash clean.
- Place the trotters, Angelica, Magnolia Bark (白芷), white pepper powder, and ginger slices in a pressure cooker. Once steam comes out, cook for 30 minutes. Then, add the white beans and cook for another 10 minutes. At this point, if the soup base is milky white, congratulations, you are doing it correctly (if you need to add water during the process, use hot water only).
- After releasing the pressure, season with salt and chicken bouillon. Add chopped scallions.
- Prepare the 'Soul Sauce': Put in chopped scallions, minced garlic, little chili peppers, white pepper powder, light soy sauce, balsamic vinegar, ground chili oil, and the original soup from the trotters.
- Pour the Soul Sauce over the trotters.
Notes
The soup is milky white, the trotters are soft and fall off the bone, the texture is fine, and served with the sour and spicy dipping sauce it is very appetizing. It is a classic Sichuan home-style dish. Trotters are rich in collagen, and white beans add a dense texture, making it nutritious. The process requires a pressure cooker and overnight soaking, which poses a certain challenge to beginners, but it is not hard to master if you follow the steps. Including soaking and pressure cooking, the whole process takes approximately 2 hours (excluding the overnight soaking time for the beans).
Estimated Cooking Difficulty: ★★★★
Estimated Calories: 1425 kcal
Category: Old Lady's Trotter Bone Soup
Breakdown:
- Trotters: 3 pieces
- White beans: 200g
- Angelica: 2g
- White pepper powder: 5g
- Ginger slices: 30g
- Angelica: 2g (listed twice in source ingredients)
- Minced garlic: 8g
- Chicken bouillon: 2g
- Light soy sauce: 25g
- Chopped scallions: 10g
If you encounter problems or areas for improvement while following the instructions in this guide, please open an Issue or Pull request.