Braised Hot and Sour Trotters

These pig trotters were supposed to be cooked during the last chinese new year but because i had too much eating out at restaurants, had pork trotters too so i ended up just keeping those trotters till just recently to cook them. Initially i wanted to cook them with sea cucumber for the new year but now i just thought of cooking them spicy. Excuse me to some of the readers here because pig trotters may sound gross or look uninviting to some of you.. visualising the legs of those pigs but i simply find them delicious after cooking it though i dont eat them very regularly. I will usually get the fore trotters if i can, they seem to be less fat compared to the hind trotters.
Ingredients:
1/2 of a medium size trotter, cleaned and chopped ,mine abt 800gm
1 big onion, cut into wedges
1 clove garlic, sliced thinly
1 heap tbsp sambal paste ( from here )
1/4 tsp of dark soya sauce
 tamarind juice ( 1 tbsp tamarind mixed with 1cup of water )
1tbsp cooking oil
1tsp of salt approx, sugar to taste
water to braise

Usually i will cook the trotters in boiling water for 10minutes to get rid of the scum surrounding the trotters.
After that i will rub in some salt for marinating for about an hour or maybe overnight in the fridge.

Method:
1. Saute garlic and big onions in cooking oil on low fire for abt a minute, switch to medium high fire and put in the pork trotters and the sambal paste together. Keep stirring them in the wok for about 10mins and splash in some water if you find a little dry.
2. Add in the tamarind juice. ( do not add them all at once, you may put in 1/2 a cup first , you can adjust the sourness later if you find that it's not sour enough)
3. Add in the dark soya sauce , the salt and sugar and stir fry them for another min.
4. Transfer them to a small pot and pour in water till it reaches slightly more than half way covering the trotters.  Simmer them for about 30minutes till gravy is thick .(you can taste the gravy here when it's simmering half way through and adjust the salt and sugar here for taste.)
5. Turn off the fire when gravy is thick and meat is tender.

Submitting this post to Muhibbah Malaysian Monday event hosted by Shaz