Polish roast pork knuckle: two and a half hours in stock, then half an hour in the oven
A pork knuckle is made in two stages and neither can be skipped. First a slow simmer in aromatic stock that melts the collagen until the meat falls off the bone. Then a honey and mustard glaze and a hot oven that turns pale skin into dark, crackling crust in thirty minutes. With sauerkraut, horseradish and potatoes.
Your own work in that: 10 min.
- Simmering in stock 150 min
- Glaze 10 min
- Roasting 30 min
- Resting 10 min
Step by step
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Prepare the knuckles
Rinse and dry the knuckles. Score the skin with a sharp knife in a diamond pattern 2 cm apart, shallowly: cut through the skin and the fat beneath it, not into the meat. If any bristles remain, singe them over a flame and scrape them off with a knife.
Ingredients: 2 pcs pork knuckle · 3000 ml water · 2 pcs onions · 2 pcs carrots · 6 cloves garlic · 3 pcs bay leaves · 6 pcs allspice berries · 10 pcs black peppercorns · 2 tsp caraway seeds · 2 tbsp salt
TipThe scoring is not decoration. Skin shrinks more than meat in the oven and, left uncut, would pull the knuckle tight like an undersized sock, while the fat underneath would have no way out to the surface.
Skin scored in diamonds, shallowly
Simmer gently for two and a half hours
Put the knuckles in a large pot with the halved onions, carrots, garlic, bay leaves, allspice, peppercorns, caraway and salt. Cover with water. Bring to the boil, skim, then lower the heat to minimum: the surface should barely tremble, with the odd bubble at the edge. Simmer 2.5 hours with the lid ajar.
TipA hard boil is the commonest mistake with knuckle. At 100 °C the muscle fibres contract and squeeze out water faster than the collagen can dissolve, and the meat ends up dry and stringy despite the long cooking. At 85–90 °C the collagen turns to gelatine and the meat stays juicy.
A barely trembling surface, two and a half hours
Check that it is tender
The knuckle is ready when a metal skewer slides into the thickest part with no resistance at all, as into butter, and the meat by the joint has shrunk back 1–2 cm from the bone. With a thermometer: 88–90 °C in the centre. If the skewer meets resistance, keep simmering and test every 20 minutes; the oven cannot rescue an undercooked knuckle.
The skewer slides in freely, meat off the bone
Dry it and brush with glaze
Heat the oven to 200 °C. Lift the knuckles from the stock into a roasting tin and dry the skin thoroughly with paper towel. Mix the honey with the mustard, crushed garlic, marjoram and pepper; brush the knuckles all over, working the glaze into the cuts. Pour a cup of the stock into the tin.
Ingredients: 3 tbsp honey · 3 tbsp medium-hot mustard · 2 cloves garlic · 1 tbsp dried marjoram · ½ tsp black pepper
TipDry skin is the condition for crackling. The water has to evaporate before the skin can start to brown, so a wet knuckle spends its first minutes in the oven steaming instead of roasting and ends up with rubbery skin.
Skin dried, glaze worked into the cuts
Roast for half an hour
Roast at 200 °C for 30 minutes, basting after 15 minutes with the rendered fat and juices from the tin. The skin should be deep brown, puffed and crisp. If it is still pale after 30 minutes, switch on the grill for 3–5 minutes and do not leave the oven: golden turns to burnt in a minute. While the knuckles roast, boil the peeled potatoes in salted water, about 20 minutes.
Thirty minutes at 200 °C, basted halfway
Rest and serve
Leave the knuckles on a board for 10 minutes. Meanwhile warm the squeezed sauerkraut with a spoon of fat from the tin and drain the potatoes. Serve the knuckle whole, to be pulled apart with a fork at the table, with horseradish and mustard on the side. One knuckle serves two.
Ingredients: 400 g sauerkraut · 4 tbsp grated horseradish · 4 tbsp mustard · 1000 g potatoes
TipStrain and chill the cooking stock: it sets into a firm jelly. That is a ready base for pea soup, sauerkraut soup or żurek (the stock is fairly salty, so salt the soup only after tasting), and with shredded knuckle meat stirred in it becomes a meat aspic.
Sauerkraut, horseradish, mustard, potatoes
Before you start
In beer
Replace a litre of the water in the stock with a bottle of dark beer and add a spoon of sugar. The stock comes out darker and lightly malty, and the honey glaze goes well with it. Most of the alcohol evaporates during the long simmer, though not all of it.
The day before
Simmered knuckles keep in their stock in the fridge for two days. Take them out an hour before roasting, dry them and glaze; roast 10 minutes longer because they start cold. This is the easiest way to serve knuckle at a party.
The skin isn't crisp
Three causes, always the same: the skin was not dried, the oven was too cool, or the honey glaze went on too thickly and began to burn before the skin had dried. A thin layer of glaze and 200 °C is the minimum.
Nutrition
per 100 gStep photos are computer-generated from the recipe.
