Should you choose to make the very wise decision to request some spectacular Rock N Feather Acres pork, I strongly encourage you to explore all the meat options available in the cut sheet (Cut Sheet). Back to the story, I recently made one of my favorite “other things” you can make from pork. It is a German dish called Schweinshaxe… Pork Knuckle. In your order, this will be the hocks. Unfortunately, Zimmermans skins the hog before it goes in for processing, so the hocks don’t have skin. I am working on a solution for that, but I am not there, yet.

You can find your own recipe on-line for making it the way you like. The pork rub is very important, but the slow roasting is as equally important. In the recipe they “slow roast” it in the oven. I choose to use my roaster and let it go for about 24 hours or more. For starters, (as directed in my recipe) I made slits in the meat and stuffed them with slices of garlic, which we also grew. That is what is shown in the figure above. The hocks are still not as large as I would like (long, I guess), which I am also going to work on.

The prepared pork knuckles sit on a rack over a tray that holds some vegetables (carrots, onions, and garlic) and spices along with some broth and a can of dark German beer. As I mentioned, I let it go for at least 24 hours. The meat flakes right off the bone, and is absolutely spectacular. The rub can put it over the top.

The juices in the bottom tray or filtered, cooked down, and thickened to make a beer gravy for the cherry on top. This last picture should make you hungry… unless you are a freakin’ vegan. Even then, it will make you salivate, but you won’t admit it.