Nailed !!!

It happened, much much sooner than I thought possible but it has happened.

So I'll set the scene, my business partner was coming over for dinner one Saturday night, I had previously arranged with my local butcher to source some raw untouched non smoked non brined pork knuckles and they had arrived just in time. I hadn't stopped thinking about the previous attempt and the learnings that had come from it and so after completing some frustrating day time IT work it was time for the prep to begin.

So I decided to stick with the same recipe as the first attempt, see the link below but I did the following to ensure satisfaction.

On Friday night (the night before) I scored the pork knuckles and lightly salted the outer skin placing them into a bag in the fridge over night. (make sure you score completely through to the meat in nice horizontal rows)

I set the oven to 130 'C

IN the tray as directed in the recipe link below, I cut up onions and garlic laying them down in the tray with boiling water.

I then placed the hocks in tray ensuring the following, they were should side down this is the meatier part of the knuckle and will stay super moist facing towards the water.

I applied 1 tablespoon of olive oil to each hock and rubbed it in along the score marks in the skin, I then applied no less than 3 tablespoons of salt to each hock ensuring I rubbed it deep into the skin, I then applied the garlic (I used the organic garlic pasta from Coles) and crushed caraway seeds generously over the skin.

Into the oven they went, So I left them inside the oven for 2 hours on 130'c then turned the heat up to a whopping 220.c for a further 35 minutes.

The internal meat temp and the meatiest parts was 72'c which was perfect.

The outer skin was completely and perfectly crackled and the inside remained moist and tender was truly a great dinner.

 

I served the Knuckles with sauerkraut (store bought) braised red cabbage and a Bavarian bread dumpling (see side story for recipe) along with organic apple sauce and some gravy was a great night I seriously recommend everyone trying this as not only are Pork knuckles affordable they leave everyone very full.

I look forward to seeing others try this recipe, please contribute photos of success or failures.