Stew Pork Hock

"JAMAICAN FLAVORS"

When stew beef turns into stew pork hock. That’s how this recipe came to be. I headed to the grocery store to get some beef to make a beef stew. When I got to the grocery store they had barely two packs of beef for stewing and they were not looking good at all. Right next to the beef a guy from the back just put out a whole heap of fresh pork. I went over to the  pork area and began looking at pork chops. Then I saw that pork hocks were half the price of pork chops, I was absolutely shocked. Who knew pork hock was a thing?

I always heard about pork trotters but not really the hock. For whatever reason, I anticipated that it would take hours and hours to cook. But to my very great surprise the pork cooked really quickly. It had tender skin and tender meat all within an hour.  It didn’t need a pressure cooker or even the oven. It was cooked straight on the stove top.

The flavor was very reminiscent of beef stew or even a peppered steak. I used a whole scotch bonnet pepper in my marinade so it had quite a nice spice. It was also simply cooked so the flavor of the meat could stand out. I almost added some small dumplings to the dish. Next time I would add butter beans and dumplings in addition to the carrots and peppers.

Ingredients (original blog post)

1 tablespoon Ginger

½ cup Onion

2 Garlic cloves

1 stalk Scallion

2 teaspoon Salt

½ teaspoon black pepper

1 Scotch bonnet pepper

2 sprigs Thyme

1 tablespoon Allspice

1/4 cup oil

1 tablespoon Onion powder

1 tablespoon paprika

3 to 4 lb Pork hock slices

2 tablespoon oil

Water for stewing

1 Carrot chopped

1 Sweet pepper sliced

Instructions

• In blender combine, ginger, onion, garlic, scallion, salt black pepper, thyme, allspice scotch bonnet pepper, oil
• Add the blended mixture to the pork hock along with onion powder, and paprika, let this marinate on the meat for at least 20 minutes.
• Add some oil to a pan and heat it. Lightly brown the pork hocks in the oil until both sides are browned.
• Add about 3 cups of water to the browned stew and allow this to cook until fork tender. The skin and the meat should be tender enough for a fork to slide right through very easily.
• They liquid will evaporate and begin to thicken before the meat is tender, if that’s the case continue to cook by adding another 2 cups of water to the meat.  I only had to add liquid once to my meat, it cooked quickly.
• Allow the last liquid to reduce by half then add the carrots and sweet peppers, taste the gravy to see if its needs any salt. If so season to taste
• Once the gravy has thickened and the meat tender dinner is served. 

Xoxo Greedygirl