On a recent (and one would say rare) sunny day in Paris, I headed over to a cousin's house to prepare a BBQ. I had decided to make 'côte de boeuf' and pig ear. The beef piece is out of the rib but without bone - though you can buy it with bone as well. In France, it is considered to be the most noble piece of the beef and was a bit of a splurge.
The pig ear, on the other hand, cost less than 2 euros. I boiled it for an hour before letting it cool and marinating it in a mixture of soy sauce, ketchup, and olive oil. Once it had been sitting in the marinade for about 30 minutes, I threw it on the grill until it was nice and grilled all over.
The rule here is that you can't overcook a piece of cartilage. The longer it's cooked (boiled+grilled), the more tender it will be. In the end, it's crunchy and chewy at the same time, and quite fatty to boot. Delicious, in other words.
The idea of making this came after I made twice-cooked pork for my parents a few weeks earlier. I used pork belly (poitrine). After boiling the the meat for an hour with some star anise, I let it cool overnight and sliced it thinly. I then grilled it in a wok, set it aside, and made stir-fried vegetables to serve with it. It was amazing.
I don't have anything good to report about the beef, which I sadly overcooked. Here's a photo that shows just how nice a piece of meat it was: you can tell from the marbling and the nice color. The butcher also removed a nice layer of fat from the outside, which, along with the marbling, is a good sign that the cow's been outside, eating grass and getting cold - instead of inside, eating god-only-knows-what.
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