My family’s famous Dominican souse recipe (This pig feet recipe is a Caribbean favorite)
As early as I could remember, my late mother was known for many things in my village. She brought life to our village of Thibaud with her cooking and presentation. She was a creative woman, and used that creativity to enrich other’s lives and share her talent.
My mother taught home economics to youths in our community, and through her enterprising ways, we were always selling something that we created. On weekends, we sold items at our shop and bar. We also went into the village to sell treats like ice pops, roasted peanuts, and one of the highest demand items, souse.
My sisters and I (mainly my middle sister) sold souse on Sunday and Saturday afternoons. My mom would prepare a large container filled with souse and trusted her daughters (in our early teens), to sell out in minutes. We were proud of having the souse monopoly in the village, mainly because of our wonderful Dominican souse recipe. People from the neighboring villages of Vieille Case, Paix Bouche, and Anse Du Mae were also clients.
What made my mom’s souse unique was that she never reused the water the pig feet was cooked in. She always used fresh, clean water, and with fresh ingredients. My mother also had the right balance of salt, water, pepper, and the lime’s acidity. It takes some tasting and modifying to get the right combination. Although she prepared it for sale, she also made sure that we feasted on souse on weekends and special occasions.
I’m thankful that my family (my husband, my first son and I) has created our own tradition of eating souse on weekends or special days. Even though we don’t have Caribbean supermarkets in my area, I’ve been visiting the Asian market, 99 Ranch. There I find lots of ingredients that we usually use in Dominican cuisine, including pig feet. Those ingredients help me create our easy Dominican souse recipe
In this recipe, I’ll share some tips and ingredients of our favorite Dominican souse recipe.
Jump to VideoHere’s the recipe
Dominican Souse Recipe
Equipment
- bowl
Ingredients
- 6 pieces Pig's feet boil Boil pig feet in a pressure cooker or large pot. Add garlic cloves and a little salt to the boiling water.
- 3 cups Water
- 1 tbsp Salt
- 2 tbsp Lime/ lemon juice Use freshly squeezed fresh lime or lemon juice
- whole Fresh hot peppers Based on your threshold
- 1 tbsp Parsley chopped
- 1 tbsp Thyme leaves chopped
- 3 Cloves Garlic minced or chopped
- 1 head Scallion chopped
Instructions
- Throw out all the water, remove imperfections, and rinse.
- In a bowl, combine water, onions, garlic, salt, lime juice, parsley, thyme, scallions and peppers.
- Take a spoon and gently crush ingredients against the sides of the bowl, so that they can commingle better and distribute their flavors
Notes
Instructions for boiling souse
- Wash pig’s feet with lemon and rinse under running water in a large bowl.
- Then Put pig feet in a pot with water cloves of garlic, some thyme and a little salt.
- Boil pig’s feet for 90 minutes. Make sure that pig feet is soft but not too soft. It should be a little firm so that it doesn’t fall apart.
- Let the pig’s feet cool down a little.
- Throw out all the water, remove imperfections, and rinse.
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