Cider Glazed Pork Knuckles with Caraway, Apples and Potatoes
Adapted from Nigella Lawson
Ingredients
2 teaspoons kosher salt or 1 teaspoon table salt
1 teaspoon caraway seeds
2 garlic cloves
2 Rosy Tomorrows pork knuckles or hocks, rind scored
2 large onions
2 large apples, cored and quartered
4 baking potatoes, or 2 pounds other large white skinned potatoes, cut into quarters lengthwise
2 cups hard cider
2 cups boiling water
Directions
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Put the salt and caraway seeds into a bowl, mince or grate in the garlic, and stir to combine. Add the pork knuckles and rub them well with the caraway mixture, getting it into the slits in the rind where it was scored.
Peel the onions and slice them into rounds and add them to the bottom of a roasting pan, making a bed or platform. Sit the knuckles on top of the onions and cook them for 30 minutes.
Take the pan out of the oven and quickly arrange the apples and potatoes around the knuckles. Carefully pour 1 cup of the cider over the knuckles, so they are basted as the liquid pours into the roasting pan. Put the pan back into the oven. Lower the oven temperature to 325 degrees F and roast for 2 hours.
Turn the oven up again to 425 degrees F, and baste the hocks with the remaining cider. Roast for 30 minutes more.
Remove the pan from the oven and transfer the apples and potatoes to a warmed serving dish.
Lift the knuckles onto a carving board and leave the onion and juices in the pan. Put the pan on the stove over medium heat and add 2 cups boiling water, stirring to deglaze the pan to make a gravy. Transfer the gravy to a serving bowl.
Take the crackling off the knuckles and break it into pieces, then add them to a serving bowl. Pull or carve the pork meat and add it to the bowl with the crackling. Serve with the apples, potatoes, gravy and some German mustard, if desired.
Make Ahead Note:
The pork and onions can be put in roasting pan up to 1 day ahead. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate. Just before cooking, rub with the salt, caraway and garlic and cook as directed.
