I've tried a few different pig tail recipes, my favorite are consistently baked or fried and are always crisp.  The pig tails I ate at Craigie on Main were delicious, as were my Mum's the last time I was home.  Now I'm going to try and create my own version.

I like the stickiness of Mum's recipe, but some of the spices are a tad over-powering.  I'm going to use her recipe as the basis for my own.

First I'm going to make a marinade, that's going to double as a glaze.  I love ketchup, so Heinz is the base for this marinade.  To it I'm going to add a shake of smoked paprika, and a squeeze of siracha, salt and cracked black pepper.  I'm also adding some cider vinegar and some brown sugar.  I'm doing all of this to taste, while heating the entire thing on the stove.  This is just a dry run, if this batch works there will be some more tests in the future.

For the next step I'm following Mum's recipe and covering the pig's tails with cold water then boiling them for an hour or so.

After about ten minutes foam began to appear on top of the water,  it's not an issue.  I just skimmed it off.

After the hour or so, drain the tails.  I've kept the liquid to see if I can make something out of it.  Maybe a hot and sour soup or something.  You don't have to keep it though. 

Once the tails are cool enough to handle chop them into pieces.  Mine have already been partially chopped.  This is not uncommon if you get them at an Asian grocery like I did.

The chopped tails now go into the marinade, then the fridge to sit for a day, or at least overnight.

In a day or so once the tails have "gotten to know" the marinade  I'll heat the oven and crisp them.  What I'm going for is crisp but slightly chewy glaze surrounding tender meat.  We'll see how I do in a day or so.