Yes, it's 3 months till Oktoberfest, I am nowhere near Europe, and the festival that happens every September in Munich has been cancelled this year anyways. I still wanted to make these just for fun. I mean... who doesn't want some crispy pork skins with juicy pork meat and a pint of cold dark German beer in the middle of Summer?
See the skins? Yea!
Now, listen to the crunch below:
Ingredient
2 Pork Knuckles
1 Large Onion, thick slices
a couple fresh German Thyme
2 Bayleaves
3 Spring Onion
2 bottles of Dark German Beer
2 cups Beef or Chicken Stock
Salt & Pepper
Caraway Seeds or Fennel Seeds
(The Germans use caraway seeds for schweinshaxe, but I could not find caraway seeds so I used fennel seeds instead. These 2 seeds are not the same plants, but relatives. They also smell different but since fennel seeds is commonly used in sausage, it'll be fine for this dish.)
Oven preheat to 350°F. Depends on how big the pork knuckle is, you'll need to adjust roast time. The pork knuckles I got were pretty small so 3 hours for these.
Instruction
Wash pork knuckles thoroughly under running water. Use paper towels to pat dry. Leave pork knuckles on a tray and put in the fridge overnight to dry completely. The drying process will help making the crunchy skins when roasting. There might be some moisture on the skin the next day, just use paper towels to remove.
Use a brush to brush a little bit of dark beer on the skins, and then rob lots of salt and fennel seeds of pork knuckles. Set aside. (If you like garlic, you can rub some garlic too.)
In a casserole pan, spade out onion, spring onion, thyme, bayleaves, and sprinkle salt and some fennel seeds. Add stock and beer to the pan. Place a rack on top of it and then place pork knuckles on top of the rack. If pork knuckles have a hard time standing up, stick bamboo skewers to the bottom of the pork knuckles for support.
Place the whole thing in the oven for 3 hours. 350°F. Check on it a couple times in between. If the liquid drys out, add some hot water.
After 3 hours, remove casserole pan from oven. Collect the liquid as dipping sauce. You can eat the onion if you want.
Tips: Keep the bones to make broth later.
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