So I bought a smoked gammon knuckle at the butchers last week. Most English folks seem to just boil the hell out of them, shred the meat and do something with it. It seemed a bit of a waste to toss the skin etc.

So, I basically followed this recipe:

https://familyonketo.com/roasted-ham-hock-with-crispy-crackling/

After reading lots of random bits of information. I am quite tempted to buy a few unsmoked ones though and try and make this:

https://www.deliciousmagazine.co.uk/recipes/ham-hock-terrine/

Maybe for Christmas or when ever I find a day - not that much hard work, just a few steps over time. We’re going in to lockdown here, so I probably won’t be leaving the house much anyway …

Meanwhile, so I had this heavily brined, smoked ham hock. I pretty much just followed the above - I think following a Croatian on this sort of food sounded a safe bet. I am pretty sure the recipe linked was a fresh pork hock (ie unbrined), but sounded like it would work out for me.

It was DELICIOUS. L, G & I all agreed.

It looked like it might be a bit overcooked after the two hours in the oven, but the meat was tender, the skin was fantastic (I put it under the broiler for about 5 minutes right at the end, although it was pretty good anyway).

It was definitely quite salty, but super yummy.

Luckily, I paired it with some peas in butter and some cabbage.

The cabbage! I put much more steps in to the cabbage than the pork, which was pretty easy. I had watched this video on making Rothkohl:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyMkELKw5Tw

(I’ve eatern Rothkohl and Pork Knuckle a few times in Southern Germany, so I had a bit of an idea of what might work)

I then read a few recipes like:

https://platedcravings.com/german-red-cabbage/

Basically I was decided this would be a good addition, particularly for my salty pork, and it was. However I was unable to find red cabbage, so just went with white cabbage (shock!) - I did have the option of Savoy cabbage, but I dunno? I’ve had it, but didn’t seem the right cabbage here. It turned out great.

The profile of the sweetish cabbage and the buttery peas really paired well with the pork. The crackling was fantastic, the meat a great pink of a good ham, and the vege pairing helped cut through the salt in a good way.

I will happily buy some hocks again, a cheap cut with some fun potential.