Pork knuckle and vegetables

I’m using a pre-cooked pork knuckle from Coles.

While the Coles product is pre-cooked, to get the crackling crispy and crunchy it needs some more cooking.

I went with this because during the week I had a lovely pork belly dinner but the crackling was disappointing. It was soft and limp. I needed some crispy crunchy crackling stat im.

Ingredients

• Coles pork knuckle
• Queensland nut oil
• Flaky iodised salt
• Brussels sprouts
• Baby green peas
• Birds Eye potato mash

Instructions

Pork knuckle

1. Remove the pork knuckle from the vacuum bag.
2. Remove all the jelly and solidified fat that is clinging to the pork knuckle.
3. Put the jelly and fat into a small skillet and gently simmer to reduce to a thin sauce.
4. Dry the surface of the pork knuckle with absorbent kitchen paper.
5. Rub a little Queensland nut oil over the surface of the pork knuckle and then liberally season with flaky iodised salt.
6. Place into a baking tray and then into a hot oven (220 °C) for about 50 minutes.
7. The endpoint you’re trying to achieve is crackling which feels hard when you tap it with a knife.
8. When the pork knuckle is ready, remove it from the oven and coddle it with aluminium foil keeping the crackling exposed to avoid it going soft and limp.
9. Allow the pork knuckle to rest for at least 10 minutes in its “space blanket”.
10. Remove the aluminium foil and peel off the crackling and then cleave off the muscle bundles and slice.
11. Keep the remainder of the meat aside and refrigerate for consumption later.

Potato mash

1. Put the bag onto a plate and then into a microwave radiation oven.
2. Set the timer for 2 minutes and 30 seconds. Because my oven is malfunctioning, in that the “2” button doesn’t work, fiddle and cook in two instalments so the total cooking time is 2 minutes and 30 seconds.
3. Allow the potato mash to rest in the bag for 1 minute.
4. Cut the bag open and extrude the potato mash onto the pre-warmed dinner plate and spread artistically on the plate.

Vegetables

1. In the reduced simmering pork knuckle jelly and fat add some Brussels sprouts and baby green peas and cook to your liking.
2. I also finished mine in the oven because I could.

Plating up

1. Lay some pork on top of the potato mash.
2. Top the pork meat with the crackling.
3. Place the green vegetables next to the potato mash.

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Final thoughts

• Do you like pork?
• How do you like your pork?
• Do you prefer having your pork prepared by someone else before you finish it off and put it in your mouth?