SMOKED PORK HOCK AND SAUERKRAUT

So I went to the butchers today to grab a couple items – mainly the giant bags of frozen whole blackberries they carry (for tomorrows mothers day breakfast for my mom and sisters), and was perusing their deli area and saw this smoked pork hock. It was like a ray shone down from heaven, striking the perfect smoked porkiness and I almost heard angels sing.

Seriously. Lookit that thing!

I knew I had to get it, but with the whole low carb thing going on, I knew I couldn’t do up a batch of my baked beans. But bought it anyways and promptly started googling.

I found a recipe from Emeril Lagasse that I wanted to try out. I stuck to about 90% of the recipe, making a few changes due to quantity, items available, that type of thing. (Here is the original recipe.) One of the changes I made was using all stock instead of stock and beer. (Low carb = no beer and I literally have 3 giant containers of already made stock in my freezer to use up.)

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Smoked Pork Hocks and Sauerkraut

Ingredients

• 1/2 litre of sauerkraut juice squeezed out
• 4 thick strips of bacon cut into 1 inch slices
• 2 medium yellow onions peeled and sliced
• 1 tbsp dried oregano
• 1 tsp caraway seeds
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 1/2 tsp black peppercorns
• 8-10 1/2 tsp juniper berries, lightly crushed
• 1 head garlic 1/2 of the head, cut in half for the bouquet and 1/2 deskinned and minced
• 3 lb smoked pork hock
• 4 cups chicken stock
• 4 chorizo sausages

Instructions

• Preheat the oven to 325F.
• Using some cheesecloth, make a bouquet garni with the peppercorns, half the head of garlic, bay leaves, and juniper berries.
• In a large dutch oven, begin to brown the bacon. At about the halfway point to being crispy, add the sausages and brown off. Remove the sausages from the pot.
• Add the caraway seeds and let saute for about 15 seconds undisturbed.
• Add the onions, stirring to mix and let soften.
• Add the garlic and dried oregano and stir to mix.
• Add the sauerkraut and mix.
• Nestle in the bouquet garni and the pork hock.
• Pour the stock around the pork hock and bake covered for 1 1/2 hours.
• Remove from oven, nestle in the pre-browned sausages, cover and bake for another hour or so. (You may have to add a bit more liquid.)
• Take out of oven, remove the pork hock and shred the meat. Remove the sausages and cut into 1" slices.
• As there was quite a bit of liquid left, I scooped (well the hubby helped while I shredded meat) out the sauerkraut into a big bowl. After, I added the shredded and cut up sausages and tossed to mixed.
• Serve with a dollop of hot mustard!

Notes

I think breakfast is going to be patties of the mix, given a bit of a good crust and served with some poached eggs and possibly a spicy mustard hollandaise.

Adapted from Emeril Lagasse

And our furbaby, Maggie, got to help with clean up and made sure every last smoked morsel came off the bone.