Pig ears

I felt adventurous on our last day in Laos, so for lunch I ordered pig ears with banana flower salad. I like the idea of using the whole animal; we are so wasteful in the Western world. Pig ears are popular in a number of countries such as Vietnam, Japan, Spain Portugal Thailand, to name a few. They can be boiled, stewed, grilled, roasted or pickled. Most of the ear is made of collagen and depending on the form of cooking they can be crunchy or gelatinous. For my salad, they were clearly slow cooked for a long time and then super thinly sliced in strips. They were quite soft and absorbed the flavours of the salad. I really enjoyed this dish.