Trotter Gear, by Fergus Henderson

If you like pies and stews, and if you like adding that little bit of extra flavor to your hearty winter meals, then you should always have a jar of trotter gear in your fridge.

What exactly is Trotter Gear?
Trotter Gear is a rich gelatinous stock made out of pork trotters.

By adding Trotter Gear to stews, sauces or soups they become richer, creamier and more flavorful.

pig's trotters - they are in fact good for something.

I know, some of you may be grossed out by this, but I share Fergus Henderson's opinion of using all the parts of an animal, rather than just picking favorites or the best looking ones. 

A piece of steak to most people does not appear to be disgusting, at all. But pig's ears, bone marrow or beef tongue are? In the end you are eating parts of an animal, whether it is a filet mignon, trotters or gummi bears.

Don't get me wrong. I would never force someone to eat something they don't feel comfortable with.

In fact, I would have a hard time eating eyes for example. Actually, I don't think I could at all...

But I do think that by being aware where your steak and BBQ-ribs come from (a whole animal with eyes, a heart, organs and, yes, feelings) it allows you to respect and appreciate (animal) life and therefore your daily piece of meat much more.

So, here is what you need for Fergus Henderson's recipe of his so-called "Healthy Jar Of Trotter Gear":

pigs' trotters (all hair removed) 6
onions 2, peeled
carrots 2, peeled
celery 2 sticks
leeks 2, split
garlic 1 head
thyme a bundle
peppercorns a handful
Sercial Madeira ½ bottle (Sherry works fine, as well)
chicken stock enough to cover the trotters


Directions:

Shave the trotters! You want to get rid of all the stiff hairs...

Place the trotters in a large casserole. Cover with water and bring to the boil. Boil for 5 minutes then drain. This removes the initial scum given off by the trotters. 

Now place the blanched trotters in the pot with the vegetables, thyme, peppercorns and Madeira and cover with the stock. Cook for at least 3 hours until the trotters are totally giving. At this point, strain the cooking liquid and keep. 

After 3 hours the pig's trotter has mutated into an alien and is ready to get pulled apart...

When the trotters are cool enough to handle (but don't let them go cold, as they become much harder to deal with), pick all the flesh, fat and skin off them tearing the skin to shreds. 

I love pulling all the flesh, skin and fat off the bone

Add to the cooking liquid, seal in a jar and refrigerate. 

You now have trotter gear – giving, wobbly trotter captured in a splendid jelly.

For more information on Fergus Henderson and how to eat the whole beast check out his books
'Nose To Tail Eating: A Kind Of British Cooking' and 'Beyond Nose To Tail', as well as his restaurant St. John in London.

Crusty Pork Roast

Except for bacon, ham or salami, I'm not the biggest pork eater. I find pork is often gets too dry and yes, it has this particular pork-flavor that, depending on its preparation tends to give me a hard time. 

We most of the time go for beef. So I decided it's time to try something different and give it a try with a pretty Bavarian style crusty pork roast. I took the idea and the original recipe from the current issue of the German magazine BEEF! and altered it a little bit. They got a pork special right now and all the recipes in there sounded pretty delicious.

For my first crusty pork roast it turned out pretty well. Not dry at all and with nice flavors (beer, caraway and maple syrup). And we have so many leftovers... Pork sandwiches it is!

Here is what you need for 6 people or tons of leftovers:

2.5kg pork roast from the shoulder (we got thigh/ham, that's fine as well)

1l beer (Lager, Pilsner)

1 tsp caraway

2 garlic cloves roughly chopped

2 onions roughly chopped

3 bay leaves

3 juniper berries

maple syrup (approx. 3-4Tbsp)

salt, pepper

Directions:

Preheat oven to 175°C

1. Pour water in a wide pot or pan to about 3cm height. Bring to boil.

2. place the pork roast, skin side facing the bottom, in the pot and brew it for about 15 minutes.

Be careful not to accidentally burn the skin while brewing already, like I did...

3. Now with a sharp knife cut the skin horizontally and vertically to create little skin cubes...

4. Put the roast with the skin side up in a deep baking tray or oven proof pan or pot and place the onions and garlic around the roast.

5. Bake for 2.5 hours.

6. After 15 minutes in the oven add about 1l of the water used for brewing the meat and add caraway, bay leaves, juniper berries, salt and pepper.

7. About 60 minutes later, crack the first beer (0.5 l) and pour over the roast.

8. 30 minutes before end pour the other 0.5 liters of beer over the roast.

9. 10 minutes before end brush the skin of the roast with maple syrup and turn the heat up to max. (be careful not to burn the roast!)

10. Remove roast from the oven and let it rest for 5-10 minutes.

11. In the meantime take some of the beer-onion liquid, blend it until smooth and reduce over heat to a nice sauce. Season to taste with salt, pepper and maple syrup if necessary.

Oh yeah, and pair with a bottle of good ice cold beer.

Serve the roast cut in slices with potatoes or green beans and sauce.

Notes: We served it with white asparagus. That was not the best fit. The asparagus tastes weird with the beer sauce. Better go with something more neutral like potatoes...

PS: I really miss my camera. Those cell phone photos are something else...

Pork ribs and the very best barbecue sauce of the universe!

Today was the first real warm day of spring in Berlin. 

Me and Wil bought plants and seeds and prepared our balcony for spring and summer. 

Tomatos, basil, chive, thyme, radish and even soybeans...we've been busy planting and cannot wait for everything to sprout! Hopefully this year we will be luckier with our ras-, black- and strawberries as well.

Anyway, first warm day also means 

FIRST POTENTIAL BARBECUE DAY!

Therefore we cleaned our hibachi, got the coal ready, bought 2 kilos of pork ribs and I dug out my:

VERY BEST AND MOST FAVORITE 

(not existing) recipe for 

BARBECUE SAUCE (!) 

which is simply made by mixing ketchup, worcester sauce, maple syrup, orange juice, soy sauce, vinegar, beer, hot sauce, smoked and fried bacon bits, chopped onion, salt and pepper, and some brown sugar.

Just start with the ketchup and slowly add all the other ingredients until the taste makes sense and it's not too sour, not too salty and not too sweet, but still thick enough to stick on the meat.
You can add some starch dissolved in water to the boiling barbecue sauce to thicken it.
No, you don't necessarily have to boil it. I just did it in order to reduce and thicken the sauce...

I marinated the meat in the barbecue sauce for at least 1 hour (4 hours are better, overnight is perfect) then cooked it in our gas oven at its lowest (150 degrees celsius) for about 90 minutes  or until the meat almost comes off the bones.
In between I drizzled some of the barbecue sauce over the meat.
After that we threw it on the barbecue.

Don't panic if the meat turns black. 

That's just the burning sugar in the sauce.

It's definitely not healthy but it tastes sooo incredibly good!

Me and my partner Wil  both came to the conclusion that burned barbecue sauce is one of the best tasting things in the world.

Seriously.

We served the ribs with more  (reduced) barbecue sauce, drank cold beer and ate until we felt slightly nauseous.

Guess that's the price you
have to pay for good hearty food...

Beer and Honey marinated Pork roast stuffed with figs, olives, almonds and pine nuts

What you need:
900g pork back, de-boned
1 bottle of beer
1-1,5 Tbsp honey
3 Tbsp olive oil
1onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, chopped
90g bread cubes
4 dried figs, chopped
8 green olives, pitted and chopped
25g flaked almonds, roasted
25g pine nuts, roasted
1 Tbsp lemon juice
1 Tbsp fresh chopped parsley
1 egg yolk
salt, pepper

Preheat oven to 200°C
Mix beer and honey in a bowl.
Place pork back in the bowl so that the meat is covered with the beer honey mix.
Marinate for 4 hours.
Heat up two Tbsp of olive oil in a pot and cook onions and garlic in it until soft.
Mix onions and garlic with bread cubes, figs, olives almonds, pine nuts, parsley, lime juice and egg yolk.
Use your hands for that!
Season with salt and pepper.

Spread half of the stuffing on flat inside part of the pork back.
Roll up the pork back starting with the thick part.
Use butcher´s string to wrap the pork roll.
Pour one Tbsp of olive oil in a roasting tray.
Place the meat in it and pour a bit (100ml) of the beer-honey mix over it.
Cook for 60 minutes.
Take the other half of the stuffing and form little balls/dumplings.
Place the balls/dumplings next to the pork roast in the tray and cook or another 15 minutes.
Take the roast out of the oven and let it rest for ten minutes.
Slice the pork roast and serve it with the balls/dumplings and the beer-honey sauce from the tray.

My pork roast turned out to be a bit too dry.
Unfortunately pork tempts to do that...
This is what you can do to prevent the meat from drying out:

1. Take meat with enough fat. Fat makes meat tender. So don't shy away from fatty meat.You want your roast to taste good, right? Some fat (we are not talking about thick layers or chunks of fat, just some "fat leftovers"!) will help making the meat soft and juicy.
2. Marinate!The longer the better!
3. use a roasting tray with a lid. In Germany we have something called "Römertopf", a clay pot that you soak in water for ten minutes before using it. The water evaporates in the closed pot keeping the meat moist.
4. slow-cook! 200°C is too hot in my opinion.Take your time and cook it slow using 80-120°C. That takes longer (probably 3 to 4 hours). But it's for the best, believe me!And it will prevent you from having dried out meat, like I had (I should have known better...). Also if you slow-cook you can use less fatty meat! whoa.