Stinco di maiale al forno con patate (Oven-Roasted Pork Hock and Potatoes)

I am taking some poetic license with today’s recipe. You see, stinco di maiale is actually the shank of the animal. It is a fairly easy to find cut in Italy, sold in many supermarkets already skinned and trimmed and ready for the oven. Here is the US, I’ve never been able to find pork shank, but pork hocks, a cut taken from further down the leg just above the foot, can be come by pretty easily, including in Asian supermarkets. (“Red cooked” pork hocks are a classic Shanghai dish.)

A much bonier and fattier cut than the shin, pork hock is smaller but requires longer cooking than the shank. A hock generally requires 3-4 hours of slow, moist cooking, as opposed to 1-1/2 or 2 hours needed to roast a shank. But despite these differences, you can make a fair simulacrum of stinco di maiale al forno con patate with fresh pork hocks. This recipe will show you how.

Stinco di maiale al forno con le patate is cold-weather comfort food in Italy, with a particular connection to Trentino-Alto Adige and other northeastern regions influenced by Austria and the cooking of Mitteleuropa. It is a simple dish of pork shin and potatoes, seasoned with rosemary, garlic, salt and pepper, then roasted together in the oven until both are tender and golden brown. In this adaptation, the fresh pork hock is first simmered with aromatic vegetables until half-cooked, then oven-roasted along with potatoes, as if it were a pork shank in the usual Italian manner. A pork hock may not be as meaty as a shank, but what it lacks in meat it makes up for in the wonderful flavor it lends to the potatoes.

Ingredients

Serves 2

• 2 fresh pork hocks
• 1 medium onion, cut into wedges
• 1-2 carrots, cut into chunks
• 1 celery stalk, cut into lengths
• A bay leaf
• Salt and pepper

For the dry marinade:

• A spring of fresh rosemary
• 1-2 cloves of garlic, peeled
• Salt and pepper

For the potatoes:

• 500g (1 lb)  (or more if you like) waxy potatoes, peeled and cut into wedges
• Olive oil
• Salt and pepper

For roasting:

• Olive oil
• A spring of rosemary
• 1-2 cloves of garlic in their skin
• White wine

Directions

To start, simmer the pork hocks and aromatics in enough water to cover for about 1-1/2-2 hours. (You can reduce the time to 30-45 minutes in a pressure cooker.) Remove the hocks from their liquid on to a cutting board. Score the skins of your pork hocks in a crosshatch patterns with a sharp knife. Let them cool off and air-dry for a few minutes before proceeding.

While the pork hocks are cooling, mince all the dry marinade ingredients together very finely, until you have a kind of paste. (A food processor makes short work of this, but for a finer result, chop the ingredients first with a knife and then grind everything together with a mortar and pestle.) Apply this paste all over the hocks, taking special care to make sure it gets into the crevices where you’ve scored the skin and on any exposed meat. If you have time, let the meat rest to let the marinade penetrate into the meat, as long as overnight—but even a hour will do.

Grease the bottom of a large baking dish or roasting pan with olive oil, then put the hocks in. Roast them at 180C/350F for 45-60 minutes, basting with white wine (or some of the simmering liquid if you prefer) from time to time.

While the hocks are roasting, in a large mixing bowl, dress the potato wedges with the olive oil, salt and pepper.

Remove the hocks from the oven. Surround the hocks with the dressed potato wedges, then nestle the rosemary and garlic cloves among them. Put the pan back in the oven and continue roasting and basting for another 45-60 minutes, until the pork hocks and potato wedges are both tender and nicely golden brown on the outside.

Let rest for a few minutes before serving.

Notes on Stinco di maiale al forno con patate

This is a rich, hearty dish that goes very well with a lightly dressed green salad on the side. You could precede your stinco di maiale al forno con patate with a pasta or risotto as a primo, but I would go for a light vellutata or other soup instead. You could even skip the first course entirely and substitute a light antipasto like a smoked salmon carpaccio.

While stinco di maiale is usually sold skin-off in Italy, I wouldn’t recommend trying to skin a pork hock. A hock is fairly boney and has relatively little meat, so I reckon you need the skin to hold everything in place as it cooks. (And the roasted skin, for us hard-core pork fat lovers, is a real treat.) Scoring the skin is a compromise that lets the marinade penetrate better.

In the US, pork hocks are also called “ham hocks” and especially when smoked, as they often are here. A fresh, unsmoked pork hock is what you want to approximate a stinco di maiale. Smoking would lend an extraneous flavor to the dish. And besides, a ham hock is best for moist cooking methods, simmered with collard greens, beans, split peas and such. I doubt it would be a good candidate for oven roasting.

Allow one hock per person, no more.

While pork hocks don’t have a great deal of meat, the skin and tendons—assuming you want to eat them, and you should—are quite filling. So are the potatoes, which will soak up those delicious pork drippings. Pork hocks are bulky, so this is not an easy dish to make for a crowd in a home oven. So, ususually, the measurements in today’s recipe is for only 2 people, though they can be easily scaled up.

Don’t throw away the simmering liquid by the way. It makes a fine base for a lentil or bean soup.

Print

Yum

Stinco di maiale al forno con le patate (Roasted Pork Hock and Potatoes)

Total Time: 3 hours

Serves 2

Ingredients

• 2 fresh ham (pork) hocks
• 1 onion, cut into wedges
• 1 carrots, cut into chunks
• 1 celery stalk, cut into lengths
• A bay leaf
• Salt and pepper
For the dry marinade (salamoia):
• A spring of fresh rosemary
• 1-2 cloves of garlic, peeled
• Salt and pepper
For the potatoes:
• 500g (1 lb) (or more) waxy potatoes, peeled and cut into wedges
• Olive oil
• Salt and pepper
For roasting:
• Olive oil
• A spring of rosemary
• 1-2 cloves of garlic in their skin
• White wine

Instructions

1. To start, simmer the pork hocks and aromatics in enough water to cover for about 1-1/2-2 hours. (You can reduce the time to 30-45 minutes in a pressure cooker.) Remove the hocks from their liquid on to a cutting board. Score the skins of your pork hocks in a crosshatch patterns with a sharp knife. Let them cool off and air-dry for a few minutes before proceeding.
2. While the pork hocks are cooling, mince all the dry marinade ingredients together very finely, until you have a kind of paste. (A food processor makes short work of this, but for a finer result, chop the ingredients first with a knife and then grind everything together with a mortar and pestle.) Apply this paste all over the hocks, taking special care to make sure it gets into the crevices where you've scored the skin and on any exposed meat. If you have time, let the meat rest to let the marinade penetrate into the meat, as long as overnight—but even a hour will do.
3. Grease the bottom of a large baking dish or roasting pan with olive oil, then put the hocks in. Roast them at 180C/350F for 45-60 minutes, basting with white wine (or some of the simmering liquid if you prefer) from time to time.
4. While the hocks are roasting, in a large mixing bowl, dress the potato wedges with the olive oil, salt and pepper.
5. Remove the hocks from the oven. Surround the hocks with the dressed potato wedges, then nestle the rosemary and garlic cloves among them. Put the pan back in the oven and continue roasting and basting for another 45-60 minutes, until the pork hocks and potato wedges are both tender and nicely golden brown on the outside.
6. Let rest for a few minutes before serving.

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(c) Frank Fariello

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