Tag Archives: Pork

Hank’s Hammy Hock and the Perverse Porking

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Make no mistake this is naughty. For me, there’s something dizzyingly brilliant about all things pig, pork and porcine, and I hope you’re of the same scholarly opinion. I’m also guilty of an exceptionally sweet tooth. It therefore comes as no huge surprise that when I happened across Nigella Lawson’s ‘Ham in cola’ recipe it had to be the next evening meal that I cooked.

Hank's hammy hock.

Hank’s hammy hock.

All of this isn’t to say that I charged in with no apprehension at all, a delicious ham hock is to be boiled in cola after all; sweet tooth or not, it’s a very odd concept. Nevertheless, let’s have a crack at this straight forward recipe. Remaining loyal to Lawson, I used the sticky black treacle glaze to coat the hock which is great for bonfire night nostalgia, or bonfire night. A hock is the upper half of a pig’s leg and can be had on or off the bone. Off the bone will be easier to carve but where’s the fun in that? On the bone has the advantage of looking fantastic. Hank, my friendly porcine quadruped, has kindly donated one of his forelegs (characterised by a diameter shorter than that of the hind leg), still on the bone. The dish gets bonus points for being extremely cheap, a succulent ham hock won’t set you back more than a couple of Her Majesty’s sterling.

Remember, prior to cooking you will need to soak your ham in cold water to get it to the desired saltiness. Personally, because I’m debauched and inelegant, I want it as salty as possible so I only soaked for an hour, just enough to take the edge off. Some would seek to soak overnight but it’s a matter of personal taste. If you can’t tell how salty your ham is: cut off slither, chuck in pan, sizzle, consume, analyse.

Start by dropping your ham into a large pan, with a halved onion and a handful of peppercorns, and douse with cola so that it’s entirely covered (about 2 litres). Not diet, don’t be a prat. Bring to a boil and then to reduce to a simmer. If you’re not going to use cola, you will want to add some leeks, carrots, thyme and a bay leaf too, you could even add some peas to make soup with later. Exact timing doesn’t really matter but allow the ham to simmer until the meat starts to come away from the bone – about an hour per kilo.

Told you it looks best on the bone!

Once boiled, place the hock on the side so that it cools to a temperature suitable for handling. In the meantime, get your sides going and preheat the oven to 240°C. Return to the cooled hock and, minding your digits, use a sharp knife to help you peel away the skin while leaving a nice juicy layer of fat between you and the flesh. Being careful to not cut the flesh, score the fat into diamonds. Give the entirety of the exposed fat a generous black treacle coating and then sprinkle on Demerara sugar and mustard powder to complete your glaze. Now stud each diamond with a clove.

Finally, plonk it onto a foil covered tray and slide it into to the oven to roast for 10-15 minutes while keeping an eye on it, nobody likes burnt glaze. Your masterpiece is now complete. I served with cabbage, roasties, apple sauce and most importantly, a chilled, dry Riesling (Dr Loosen Red Slate Riesling 2011), which paired well with the ham, and can be picked up for a tenner. Superb.

Hunker down for some quality time with your hog. Oink.

Eat up.

Eat

Post-mortem:

The excitement of preparing the hock was kid-in-a-sweetshopesque, hitting fever pitch when pouring cola all over it and smothering the scored fat with black treacle. That said, contrary to Nigella’s opinion that “No one who cooks it, cooks it just once: it always earns a place in every repertoire.”, I will never boil a ham in cola again, not because it was bad but because I felt it didn’t add a great deal to the dish and I lost out on delicious soup potential. If you really fancy making a cola soup (it is a thing, I checked), go mental, do it, go sane again and realise what you just did was dumb and gross. The black treacle glaze had much merit in its deliciousness, and while it’ll never be the classic honey mustard glaze, it’s spectacular once in a while. I’m certain it will return to the family table for bonfire night!

Introductions and first impressions…

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Greetings, reader. You’ve stumbled across The Blog: The blog that I’ve been threatening to begin for at least six months. Well done, you! Is it a big deal? Yes, yes it is. During the last decade, I’ve dodged my fair share of social media bullets whilst taking others square on the chest but I’ve always been perplexed as to why people take it so seriously, blogging included. Feeling somewhat less profoundly individual, I now find myself at the base of the blogcraft precipice and it looks as though the beginning of my first post is set to lay out my disdain for blogs, bloggers and the act of blogging, how bloody novel! What is it that compels us to write these lengthy posts – largely to people we don’t and will never know – on what are usually trifling matters? Is it an innate desire to have our opinions heard by the masses and that the internet has become a suitable stage on which we can all perform like circus clowns? Perhaps. Then there are those that seek to make their fortunes through blogging, the ‘self-hosters’ – those confident enough in themselves to pay the subscription fees associated with owning their domain. If they’re successful then kudos where kudos is due, but the sad fact is that the vast majority fall incredibly short and their dreams of a blog founded business evaporate as quickly as they were realised. For those that manage to sculpt their circus stage into a podium for blogging excellence, great fortune and the opportunity to throw away a conventional career await, and frankly, I’m terribly envious.

Does all of this make me an annoying, flaccid contrarian? Almost certainly, but I wanted to get the word flaccid in as soon as possible. In an act of entirely (un)forgivable hypocrisy, I seem to have seamlessly joined the legion of twits that reside in coffee shops hoping to pave the internet with try-hard profanity and attention seeking photography, and I couldn’t bear less shame if I tried. Anyway, please do read on, lest I never find my foothold in Blogdom.

I guess the reader – that’s you, chief – might like to know what my mission statement is and why I am in fact blogging when I could be criticising bloggers with my fellow misanthropists. The answer is simple, food; delicious, dribble inducing banquets; sapid, saliva inspiring feasts. You know of what I speak, those plates of consumables that make your salivary glands feel like Christmas has come early. Despite my envy of those that manage to monetise their blogging efforts, my aim is not to cash in; I’m dumping my culinary efforts into the .com æther in order to… Actually, I haven’t a clue why, but I am.

Over the last couple of years, at university – Master of Physics, if you really wanted to know – I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know a couple food savants. I won’t name them, their egos don’t require stoking, but by sitting back and watching this dynamic duo bicker in the kitchen I have learnt to be at least marginally irritable when cooking around others. I think I can now legitimately call myself a novice cook too. Two years of decidedly delicious company have now passed, graduation – which, for the record, really isn’t worth the hype it gets – is upon me and an abundance of time now lies ahead, until I have to do the whole ‘working for a living’ thing of course. So with fantasy of promoting myself beyond novice status, I head to the kitchen with laptop in tow.

It will soon become apparent that I spend a gloriously large fraction of my time orbiting meaty farmhouse grub, rarely gaining escape velocity to challenge anything that isn’t fleshcentric. “Salad?!” I hear the vegetarians, vegans and the other culinarily awkward cry. Rennet all over it. Thanks, Parmesan. It’s not that I mean to cause offense, but rather that I would like to build some realistic expectations of The Blog; there might be the odd meat free pasta dish, pudding or cocktail floating around but, in general, this is a meaty production.

My good friend Sabatier making short work of dear Buttercup. A delicious beef fillet for five.

My good friend Sabatier making short work of dear Buttercup. A delicious beef fillet for five.

My posts shall consist of what I eat, what makes me ‘mmmm’ and any other related musings I dare to have. If something is judged by the eaters to be particularly delicious, then recipes will be detailed. I will endeavour to make a post per day. Now, in the name of not dawdling like a two-wheeled Reliant Robin, let’s get on with it. Butter me up and call me a skillet, this is the porcine publication: The Porky Pantry.