Cooking in Czech: bake the knuckle in the oven

2024 Author: Isabella Gilson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:14

Shank, that is, that piece of pork carcass that is adjacent to the knee joint, is considered good meat. From the shank - this is also called this part of the ham - they prepare delicious dishes. If everything is done correctly, the meat is not ashamed to be served on the festive table. And in the Czech Republic, the hallmark of the national cuisine is the knuckle baked in the oven. We will now consider the recipe for this and other similar dishes.

This delicious winter dish is traditionally served in the Czech Republic (and also in Germany) with sauerkraut stew and a glass of cold beer. Fragrant, hot, with a seductive crust pork knuckle just asks to be in your mouth. Juicy and fatty meat in tandem with the acidity of the side dish gives an inexpressible pleasure. Stewing cabbage correctly is also a whole art, but here we will learn how to bake a shank deliciously. We will prepare it in three stages. First - cooking. So in addition to the main second course, we will also get a base for soupor aspic.

I wash my knee well, scraping the dirt from the skin with a knife. Finely chop the garlic, mix with other spices (mainly peppers and dry herbs), rub the shank. Pour in water and set to boil for two hours. The second stage is stuffing and marinating. We make incisions on the skin of the knee, stick the longitudinal halves of the garlic cloves into the holes. Mix half a liter of dark beer with a spoon or two of honey. We turn on the oven to warm up to 200 ° C. Put the shank in a mold, pour the marinade. After thirty minutes, bake the shank in the oven for about an hour. Regularly open the door and pour the meat with beer. If the last has evaporated quickly, add a new one, so keep one more bottle in reserve.

In Russia, the shank was baked without pre-cooking. This process is longer, but less laborious. We stuff the knee with garlic, as in the previous recipe. Then we coat with a mixture of s alt with pepper, mustard and dry seasonings. Let the meat soak in spices for about two hours at room temperature.

Heat the oven to 180-200°. We bake the shank in the oven for one and a half to two hours, if the knee is medium in size. From time to time the meat must be turned over. Readiness is checked by poking a toothpick in the thickest place. If it is not blood that stands out, but clear juice, then you can remove the baking sheet.

But that's not all. Our ancestors cooked the shank in a Russian oven, with a special thermal regime. Therefore, when we bake the shank in the oven, after finishingprocess, wrap your knee in foil and cover it with a blanket. This will cook the meat with residual heat.

To speed up the process of cooking pork knee even more, you can make it in foil or cooking sleeve. Then the meat will not need to be turned over. Mix equal parts mustard and soy sauce. We rub the shank with this composition, do not forget to s alt and pepper. Wrap in foil or place in a sleeve. We bake the knuckle in the oven, as described above. Twenty minutes before turning off the oven, carefully unfold the bag so that a crispy crust forms on the meat. If your oven has a tendency to scorch the bottom of your food, rest your knee on the sliced potato wedges. On this bed, the meat will not burn, and you will have a delicious side dish for the dish.