One night at dinner, I had a brief conversation with my cousin. It revolved around a particular star shaped green bean that is often used in Malay cuisine. Which then turned into a short discussion that you can’t really do great French food with local ingredients and that local ingredients probably deserved better then to be shunted into another cuisine, like some unwanted lovechild.

This got me thinking. I’m often obsessed by the latest amazing, exotic ingredient from the caverns beneath Timbuktoo or the discovery of some incredible thing that came from a lab in Stockholm or whatever but I know next to nothing about the food of my own country. I was ashamed. I mean, I know a bit but not as intimately and the same passionate fervour as I do with stuff like, the next big trend for guys (tapered multicolored patterned sweatpants) or what Takeshi Kaneshiro says during the freeze frame in Chunking Express.

So, in view of that, I decided I’d attempt to cook something using only local ingredients, so local that I only go to the nearby market and nowhere else. Reason being, I’m a cheapskate, but more so because I think it really amplifies the eat/cook local thing. The market in question is Bukit Timah Market & Food Centre, where the produce is pretty pedestrian. Whatever you can find there, you can find all over the island’s many markets. Its got absolutely nothing super special.

The other thing I’m going to do, is I’m not cooking French food. Or fusion food. I’m just cooking food period. It’s not even particularly Singaporean or Chinese. It’s just what I see in the market and what I think I could make that would be interesting, and taste good. 3 courses, service a la Russe, 9 people (5 friends + 4 family), copious amounts of alcohol and nothing too fancy.

The first thing that popped out when I went to the market, was these pig’s trotters. What’s great is the availability. Every pork butcher had them and in some quantity, enough for my plans. Also, its a good part of our food heritage involving Chinese stews whether using vinegar or oyster sauce as the base. I reckon having a stew as a main, with a thick, gelatinous texture and a rich mouthfeel would probably hit the spot no matter how bad I sucked. But I wanted to do something funny with it. Other than slow cooking it with some onions and leek, I thought I’d debone it and then wrap up the trotter with some enoki mushrooms as an edible “bone”, which complements the pork in terms of flavor and lends a textural contrast. I’m also going to mix up the flesh with some extras (perhaps some pears, used in Chinese soups as well as being a classic pairing with pork) and then put that back in and this way, I’d hopefully get an elegant rolled up log with concentric circles. Then I’ll sear this off in a pan before slicing it to serve for some color and extra flavor.

With the juices, I’ll reduce it and add some soy for color and flavor, possibly some honey although I reckon the collagen in the feet will make the juice thick already. We’ll see.

Now I just need to decide on the entree (probably some kind of seafood), the veg for the pork (spinach or kangkong or some local type green I’ve never touched before) and the dessert (leaning towards a soy milk flavored panna cotta).