This is adapted from a recipe by Matthew Fort (food columnist for The Guardian) that I spotted recently.
Cooked long in a low oven, it’s simple and straightforward–requiring minimal effort on a hot day.
Hand of pork [jarret in French] is located below the shoulder and on the bone . It’s a tasty but less expensive cut–and stays moist through the long-ish braise.
Four of us just had it for lunch.
Two hands of pork–deboned and skinned (the butcher will do this when he’s not busy) or leave the bone in–just makes it harder to carve, but the meat should fall off the bone anyway.
1 teaspoon of juniper berries
6/7 bay leaves
1 teaspoon of black peppercorns
150 ml cider vinegar
100 ml water
pinch of salt
I added a couple of small fennel bulbs I had in the fridge—cleaned & halved (optional)
Preheat the oven to 150C/300F
- With a sharp knife carefully strip off as much as you can of the fat layer left on the pork.
- Put the bay leaves, juniper berries and peppercorns and fennel pieces in a casserole.
- Lay the pork hands on top–(ours had separated into 4 largish pieces after boning)–and lightly salt them.
- Pour over the vinegar and water.
- Bring this gently up to a simmer.
- Cook in the low oven for 2 hours.
- Take the dish out of the oven.
- Leave aside the pork pieces in the warm casserole–but ladle or spoon the liquid–which will be too tart– into small saucepan and reduce it by half.
- Taste it–and when it tastes like a sauce you like, pour it into a warmed gravy jug.
- The pork pieces don’t carve easily.
- We served the pork in tasty looking chunks with a little of the gravy poured over them.
Robin Ellis 