German-inspired Roasted Pork Trotters

About 2 weeks ago, my friend and I went to Berlin for the authentic German Christmas market experience. It was a crazy idea seriously, considering we were already freezing in London (we traveled smack in the middle of the cold spell). My toes turned black from the cold on the first day, not kidding, and by the last day, I was wearing all the clothes I brought so my carry-on was conveniently light. But it was great fun! One sip of a mug of hot Bailey's and one (ok much more than one) bite of sizzling bratwurst are all we needed to make us forget about the cold. And then that massive German pork knuckle at Augustiner. We ate so much pork there I was convinced I had enough pork to last me the rest of the year.

But it's 2011! (yes I knew that when I said "rest of the year") So I started to think about the pork knuckle again. It's that power combination of crispy outside and soft and gelatinous inside, the fat/collagen (I don't know which I was eating after a while) and tender meat underneath that crack!-ling. So I googled recipes and decided to try this very basic Shweinshaxe recipe out.

Then at the butcher's, I stupidly got pork trotters instead. Ahhh :( Knuckles are above the trotters, which are the actual feet?hooves? of the pig, so there's a lot more meat. Trotter= Knuckle - meat= Skin+gelatin+fat. BUT who says I must give up all hope? I went for it anyway, not knowing how it'll turn out! I slow-cooked the pieces of trotter with soup vegetables first, then once I got them soft and tender, I chucked them into the oven at a very very high temperature for 40 minutes to crisp up the skin.

UPDATE: Doesn't turn out crackling this way... ):

German-inspired Roasted Pork Trotters

Ingredients

1 pork knuckle, chopped into large chunks

1 large onion

1 carrot

1 celery stick

1 leek

salt, black peppercorns

pinch of cumin

beer/stock/water

1 tbsp of oil, preferably lard

1 tbsp of butter

pinch of cumin (or if you have caraway seeds, a tsp of that would be better!)

pinch of sugar

Method

1. Boil the pork knuckle in rapidly boiling water for 10 min or so first to clean it. You'll see alot of disgusting scum floating to the top of the water. Drain and discard the water.

Pork trotter, after the boiling/cleaning process. Piece the puzzle? ;)

2. Chop vegetables and combine with pork totters, salt and black peppercorns in a large pot filled with just enough beer/water (I used water/stock, but I wished I had beer)to cover. Bring to boil and simmer gently for 3h or so until tender.

3. Preheat oven to 220 degrees celsius. (HOT.)

4. Oil the base of a roasting tray, then arrange the pork trotter pieces on the tray, skin side up. Try to make sure there's no overlapping so all the skin will get exposed to the heat! Arrange the vegetables around the trotter pieces. Moisten everything with a ladle or so of the cooking liquid. I dotted the trotters and vegetable with a bit of butter, and sprinkled a pinch of salt, black pepper, cumin and sugar (just in case;) too.

5. Bake for 30-40 min, moistening frequently with more cooking liquid.

6. Traditionally served with sauerkraut, red cabbage, potato dumplings and a huge dollop of mustard. I served mine with Mustard-mashed Potatoes, and Braised Red Cabbage with Apples.

Verdict: You know when you eat a pork knuckle and you get bits (ok chunks) where you have to abandon your knife and just bite and puuulllll to rip the skin? That's what you get all the time while eating it! It made it a lot of fun to eat. I ended up eating twice the amount in the photo, but eh, it's mostly bones ;) and since it's an uncommon and unpopular cut, it was so cheap too! But it's NOT crackling. I've learnt that crackling has to be made with skin that's very dry, hence you don't slow cook a pork belly then chuck into the oven. This was more like pork-gnawing not pork-crackling, mouth-action/sound effect wise.

Here's some food porn:

I humbly admit it doesn't match up to that impressive pork knuckle we had in Berlin. I still want my pork knuckle! I promise I will revisit this, stay tuned.