A pig’s trotter dish made easy

Here’s the erstwhile enfant terrible of English cooking, Marco Pierre White, on film back in 1988 (great hair man!) in a piece made as a tribute to one of his own heroes, Raymond Blanc.

At 6 minutes into the video, you see him show — seemingly effortlessly as though he was simply shelling peas — how to prepare a trotter stuffed with morels, sweetbreads and onions. It really is the stuff of legend in a dish that pretty much symbolised the 80’s and all its excesses. Marco apparently first saw it whilst working for the dish’s putative creator, the godfather of pig dishes, Pierre Koffmann, at La Tante Claire in Chelsea (now of course the site of the still brilliant Restaurant Gordon Ramsay at Royal Hospital Road — and the shouty one also makes an appearance here, as a tousled haired, callow 22 year old).

Marco was justly famed for the way he single-handedly lifted the entire cheffing game in England to the next level. Generations of fantastic chefs followed along and built on his innovations. This video shows why he was for a long time, The Man.

That and the “White Heat” book of course…

So, here’s how to do it. Off you go…