Beer-braised pork knuckles -> pig's feet for you and me ;)...

Beer-braised pork knuckles - pig's feet for you and me ;)...

OK, I have to be honest here - I wasn't a huge fan of pork knuckles/pig's feet/ham hocks - or whatever you want to call them - but there is one (well now two) ways I'll eat them. First is the jellied pig's feet and now this! Recipe taken from new Nigella Lawson's book 'Kitchen'. If you only can - try it! Especially when you can get pig's feet at butcher's for nothing! This dish is what I call a 'men's food' ;)
Oh, and just one thing - I know that in some countries (like Poland) it is 'a point of honour' to eat whole pork knuckle, but trust me guys you don't want to do it... one generous pig foot is good for 2, not 1 person!

How to make it...
Ingredients:
- 2 teaspoons sea salt or 1 teaspoon pouring salt
- 1 teaspoon caraway seeds (cumin seeds)
- 2 garlic cloves (I added 3)- 2 pork knuckles/hocks, their rind scored
- 2 onions (I added 3)- 2 eating apples, cored and quartered
- 4 baking potatoes or just under 1 kg main crop potatoes, cut into quarters
- 500 ml good amber or dark beer
- 500 ml boiling water (I didn't have to use it)Preheat oven to 220 C. Put salt, caraway seeds, grated garlic and mix everything well together. Rub the mixture into the pork hocks.
Peel the onions, slice into rounds and cover the bottom of the roasting tin with them. Sit the hocks on top and cook in the oven for 30 minutes.
Take the tin out and quickly arrange apples, potatoes around the hocks and pour half the beer over. Put back into the oven for 2 hours and lover the temperature to 170 C.

Turn the oven up again to 220 C, baste the hocks with the rest of the beer and leave to cook at the higher temperature for another 30 minutes.
Take the tin out of the oven and transfer the apples and potatoes to a warmed dish. Lift the hocks onto a carving board, leaving the onion and juices in the tin. Put the tin on the hob over a medium heat and add 500 ml boiling water (I had enough juices and didn't have to add water), stirring to de-glaze the pan and make gravy.
Nigella doesn't write about that but my Hubby took a sieve and put onions and apples with juices through it - it made nice, thick gravy.Take the crackling off the pork and break into pieces, pull apart or carve the meat and serve with potatoes, gravy and maybe some German mustard.

Bon appétit!

A Anula's Kitchen

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