German Style Pork Knuckle from Woolworth, by Three Aussie Farmers

Yesterday it was a Lazy Pork Knuckle evening!

This one from Three Aussie Farmers I got from Woolworth, and Damn!! The price was pretty good!!! 

Usually I use pre-cooked meals when am short for time, but but with this one I realised it needs 50 min in the oven, so not exactly a quick meal, but still, apart from making gravy, you don’t need to do much else – so more wine time!! 

I followed instructions precisely. Oven to 240C. Remove from pouch and reserve the “juices”. Hmmm.. “juices” coagulated into jelly by the bone gelatine, so you just peel the jelly off the knuckle!! 

Pat skin dry with paper towel and rub mixture of salt and oil. Pop into the oven. 

The packet suggested beer gravy to go with it. Link is here: to make it easier for you to find. I coincidentally had everything needed – beer, stock, tomato paste, garlic and onions. 
You can read the gravy recipe, it’s pretty straight forward. Except my cornflour turned into big lumps, so I just removed it and used good old reduction in a wide pan. However recipe didn’t have any seasoning. So I added black pepper, a little salt (taste, as your stock might be salty enough), pinch of mixed herbs and heaped teaspoon of bourbon mustard (Dijon or wholegrain will do fine too). Reduce till it is thick enough and separates with the spatula running through it, see pic.

For sides, I just used baby potatoes with herb butter in the packet from Coles again (only because it was reduced to $2!) so it was cooking in microwave while I was cooking gravy. Shook it up to coat them with butter and gently smashed with the potato masher. Mashed potatoes and sauerkraut would have been perfect combo. But I didn’t have time for mash nor sauerkraut in fridge.

So… drum roll….!!! After 50 min our Cooked Knuckle looked pretty damn good out of the oven! The skin crisped up and was still juicy and fatty inside and was just salty enough from it’s cure. The meat was actually super tender and delicious, and the gravy went really well with it. However if you don’t have time/can’t be bothered, meat is juicy enough to go without it or you can use ready gravy or relish you have in the pantry. 

Finally, don’t get fooled by the number servings on the package: it says 5! Seriously?? You can see final meat without bone in. It was pretty good for 2 of us. Potentially we could have fit one extra person who doesn’t eat much, but that’s it! 

Overall: I loved it. It does take time, but still much less than curing and slow cooking. It tastes delicious and bloody good value. $7 for knuckle, $2 for potatoes and couple bucks for salad bits and gravy. That’s $12 bucks for both of us, $6 each. Not bad for a pretty tasty, nutritionally good and filling weeknight dinner. 

Thank you for reading and do let me know what you think.

Cheers, Marina xx