Stink to High Heaven Pt.#1 (Congee with Century Egg)

It's always been true with food that the ones that exude the most repugnant stench yield the best flavour. This is why I have named this two part series, unsubtly, 'Stink to High Heaven' . The case holds true for an array of foods namely strong nutty or blue cheese, garlic (as vampires well know), or onions; here however, I may have crossed the line between brave and insane.
I could have done this series about the simpler foods named above but I'm afraid I am and always have been attracted to the bizarre spectrum of life, and thus I've made this series about two Asian delicacies renowned for their pungent odour and polarising flavour.- 'natto' and today the 'century egg'
Whether you call this food preserved egg, millennium egg or simply a bad idea, the long story short is that it is a preserved egg. It's certainly not preserved for the length of time advertised, more like a few weeks or a month; but it's certainly long enough to put the egg through a striking metamorphosis. A duck, chicken or occasionally a quail's egg is packed in a mixture of soil and lye until the egg undergoes a chemical reaction- the culprit is the alkaline salts in the lye which work like gremlins to turn the clear egg white into a cola-coloured jelly and the yolk into a grey/green custard, almost interstellar in appearance. The look is vibrant and slightly unsettling but it does possess a strange beauty- the egg's surface crackles with a pale snowflake pattern that arises from the preservation process, and I see a bit of the ugly duckling complex with the egg, naturally.
But looks aren't everything. In terms of taste, the foremost flavour is definitely egg. It's surprisingly mild; much like the dragon fruit its vivid appearance doesn't translate into strong flavour. It has an ammonia, strong cheese vibe to it which I happen to relish (though I'm sure many would disagree). One thing I should say is that the century egg lets you know what some people find so repulsive about regular hard boiled eggs.
Many eat the egg as a challenge by simply biting into it whole, but that's definitely not the idea. Alone, the egg has few merits but when it's softened and complimented by other flavours, it shows that the egg can be delicious and not just some culinary quirk. The only way I've come across it being eaten is in a rice porridge; very light, very soothing and perfect for the slightly harsh notes of the egg. It's incredibly simple to make- you simply overcook rice until it melts into a thick, silky porridge.

100g pudding rice or other short grain white rice
750ml hot chicken/vegetable stock
Soy sauce, to taste
White pepper, to taste
Dash of sesame oil
Chopped spring onion and 1 century egg

In a sieve under running cold water wash the rice until the water more or less runs clear. Place it in a saucepan and cover with the stock then give a good stir and clamp on the lid to help the mixture boil faster. Once it comes to a boil turn the heat down very low and simmer for 1+1/2-2 hours, until the rice has broken down into a thick porridge. Frequent stirring is necessary to prevent catching and achieve a velvety texture. Season with light soy sauce (or just regular salt if preferred) to taste.
Crack the egg gently on a worktop and peel it. The inner papery membrane is spotted with dark freckles. Chop the egg into small pieces and use it to top each bowl of porridge (this serves 2). Scrunch over some pepper, sprinkle with spring onions and drizzle over some sesame oil. If you can get over the bizarre appearance of the egg, every mouthful will be delicious. Will I make this again? Most definitely, not least because I have 5 more eggs to eat up!

Rye Sourdough

Making homemade sourdough is macho enough, but I don't think you can get moreso than with rye sourdough. And I'm not the sort of bloke who can feel macho very often.

One of my first posts since I revamped this blog was about sourdough; I was in a fever of excitement about it after I entered (and lost) a competition to bake one. The rush of getting a sourdough loaf right is unparalleled in the kitchen. When I wrote the entry I tried to cover as much going wrong as possible in quite a scary, though methodical, troubleshooting list, a principle of which was recommending not to start off with sourdough until you've got a feel for regular, yeast risen bread. I wouldn't say that looking back- though it is true that sourdough is marginally harder to make than regular dough and it requires a lot more planning- what I would say is that the thing that will truly ensure your bread is a failure is if you go into this concerned and apprehensive and feeling like you will go wrong. Cooking picks up on worry and as in life, willing something to go wrong means it probably will. So go ahead with this in full confidence and faith (not in something flimsy like my writing of this, but in the bread and the yeast that's always in the air that allows this to rise). The bread baking instinct is in everyone.

Before you make this you will need to have procured a regular sourdough starter and from that a rye sourdough starter. The instructions are as follows, and I don't offer measurements here, because you don't need them. To make regular starter combine strong white bread flour with water by which I always mean cold tap water, in a large-ish jar and beat well to expel lumps. The consistency should be between a crepe batter and sponge mixture, or failing that slightly thicker than unwhipped double cream. Then just leave it, with the lid partially on for a night. The following morning tip out half the mixture then add a little more flour and water to get it to the same consistency. Leave it again. The next morning it should probably have started fizzing up a bit and will smell a little tart; again, tip out half and refresh, and leave again. By the following morning the starter should have definitely got going and its fizz should increase its volume by about 1 1/2 times, and it will have created a film of grey liquid- this is alcohol, a product of the yeast respiring. You can tap this off or mix it in; some claim it adds more complexity of flavour. If it hasn't, repeat the process again.

You may as well turn this into rye starter now- scoop out a good 2 tablespoons of starter into a separate jar with a lid and add water and strong rye flour until it reaches the same consistency as your regular sourdough. Leave this overnight by which time it should be fully active as the starter that this was based on was already active, and have increased in volume a lot. See below to turn this into bread.

To keep these starters it's too labour intensive to have them at room temperature so you must keep them in the fridge. This is technically called retarding, and to aid this slowing down of the bacteria have the starters really thick, as thick as cement with more flour (regular strong white flour for regular starter, and more rye for rye starter). Once in the fridge you only need to refresh them once every few weeks, and I find I often use regular flour to refresh the rye starter to save the more expensive rye flour. If you want to bake with them however, you can't use them straight from the fridge. I take them out the night before, but a few hours would be fine as long as they do come to room temperature. I also refresh the starter and dilute it as I take it out of the fridge which helps it combine into a bread dough more easily.

To bake your rye bread, this is how to do it:

70g rye sourdough starter

250g strong white bread flour 

250g strong rye flour 

350g water (it's often easier to weigh water though it is exactly the same in ml, and you have to be flexible with the amount anyway)

2 flat tsp table salt (or 1 dessertspoon if you still have one)

1 tbsp molasses or black treacle

3 tsp caraway seed (completely optional)
100g rye flakes, plus more to sprinkle, toasted (also completely optional)

Combine the flour, salt and caraway seeds together in a large mixing bowl, then incorporate the starter and water and molasses (it's useful to dip the measuring spoon in the water to help the viscous treacle slip off the spoon). The best tool for this is your hands. I find it best to have the dough mixed together fully in the bowl to clean the bowl a little and have it coated in a little flour before you start kneading, but by all means tip the runny mass straight onto the floured worktop if you wish. Once the dough's come together and is fairly sticky (it will absorb more flour as you knead) tip it onto a floured worktop (flour it with the white flour) and begin kneading. Due to the relative heaviness of rye this will never knead elastic, so you only have to pummel and stretch the dough for about 4 minutes. Use a scraper or palette knife to help remove stuck bits of dough from the worktop. Once the dough feels a bit smoother and taughter, oil it and place it back into its mixing bowl. This will have a slow overnight prove so to help prevent the dense dough from drying, spread a film of oil over the surface. Cover with clingfilm and leave to prove overnight at room temperature.

By the morning, and you don't need to get up at dawn, the dough should have slightly less than doubled in size. If it hasn't, pummel the dough and leave it for the rest of the day, and it should rise then. This happens. If there's still no activity, discard it, and try again at a later date- the starter may have been unready for use but don't be afraid of this happening- this is just a precautionary warning.

If you don't have time in the morning to do this, put the dough in the fridge until you get back in the afternoon to stop the dough overproving.

 Tip the dough out gently onto a lightly floured surface and don't knock it back. You're aiming to keep some of the air bubbles from its prove. To give it some surface tension flatten it slightly and pull the sides into the middle to create a seam. Keep redoing this gently until the dough's got some good tension and doesn't flop all over the place. To prove it again either dump it on a greased baking sheet and cover with clingfilm, or to give it a really good roundedness line a large bowl with a tea towel and flour it well. Place the dough in the centre of the bowl and turn the corners of the tea towel to cover the dough. 

Leave to prove for a few hours until roughly doubled again. Very gently tip the risen dough onto a greased baking sheet and take off the tea towel. Using a lame or a really sharp, thin knife, score a pattern on the dough. To give it a good crust, or at least a more emphatic crust, brush with water and optionally sprinkle more caraway seeds on top.

Bake in a preheated 170 degrees Celsius oven until when you rap the base it sounds hollow. If it's a little flat don't worry, it will taste wonderful and it's homemade- these things don't matter at home! They only matter if you make the ill decision to enter it in a competition. 

Fried chicken and sufferin' succotash

I've done a recipe for fried chicken before, but I wanted something a bit closer to the original, that's to say closer to the way the glorious cooks of the Deep South fry chicken, and less ripped off Nigella Bites, to be frank. Nevertheless, the issue of cooking the chicken all the way through whilst still having an Uber crunchy coating remains, and the solution I have here is thoroughly foolproof (this is coming from a fool so you gotta believe me). I use brown meat here because it's the best, but if you wanted a mixture then get a chicken jointed by a butcher (or do it yourself if you're very brave) and do exactly the same as you would with just 6 pieces from separate chickens, as this recipe follows. Bare in mind that a jointed chicken gives you 8 pieces, so you may need a bit more milk in the marinade and a bit more flour to coat.
The succotash recipe I've kept because it makes a fabulous accompaniment to the chicken which must be eaten between fingers I'm afraid, although a fork's probably best to deal with the succotash. The name refers to my endearing love of Looney Tunes, and yelling sufferin' succotash is the character Sylvester the Cat's coping strategy for dealing with trouble; not that you need to add the sufferin' part- succotash is a gratifying word as is. The dish itself is a rib-sticking mix of broad beans (Lima beans) and sweetcorn that gave victims of the great depression a cheap source of protein, but as is often in food, the poor culture's dishes are still cooked today because they are so very very good. While I feel the succotash is a good and filling enough accompaniment (and it's not as if you're gonna be struggling to make up daily calories with this) I know plenty of people that couldn't have this without chips. It's perfectly doable, just cook the chips in oil before cooking the breaded chicken, taking them out before they get too brown (as they'll continue to cook while they keep warm in the oven) and leaving them on a tin lined with parchment paper to go in the oven that's hot for the chicken's second cooking stage. Then just use the chip oil to fry the chicken and continue as follows.
I'm not even going to broach this with the health issue- if you're looking for diet food I can't see any reason to be reading a post about fried chicken.

6 chicken pieces, on the bone and skin on (think thigh and drumstick)
250ml buttermilk
125ml ordinary milk (whatever you've got in the house)
1 tbsp coarse salt
2 tsp tabasco or other viciously hot sauce
4 cloves crushed or minced garlic
1 small onion, peeled and roughly chopped

2 eggs
300g plain flour
1 1/2 tsp table salt
2 tsp smoked paprika
2 tsp dried sage (or 1 tbsp finely chopped fresh sage)
2 tsp ground black pepper

Vegetable oil or a block of solid cooking fat, such as Crisp'n'Dry (I often use this and dilute it with the regular oil) for frying
Grains of uncooked rice for testing

For the succotash:
1 tbsp cooking oil
1 onion, diced
2 red bell peppers, diced
2 cloves crushed garlic
1 finely chopped red chilli (or 1/4 tsp dried)
2 tsp dried sage (or 1 tbsp finely chopped fresh)
250g frozen broad beans or frozen edemame beans
250g frozen sweetcorn kernels  (of course you can use tinned)
Fresh thyme flowers

In a freezer bag, mix the buttermilk, milk, hot sauce, garlic and salt together and then lower the chicken pieces in and leave to marinate overnight. I leave the bag in a dish or the box the chicken came in for support and to dispel leaking risk.
When marinated, combine the flour and its seasonings together in a separate dish or plastic bag. Take 125ml/half a cup of the buttermilk marinade and whisk this into the two eggs. It might seem a faff to make more dipping liquid, but the eggs make the coating crispier.
Remove the chicken pieces from their marinade and drip off as much excess as you can. Dip each chicken piece into the flour mixture then into the eggs, then finally into the flour again. Make sure you really pack the last breading layer onto the surface well, and if you rub your hands together to loosen the clumpy bits on your fingers you can pack these onto the coating too. Finally, transfer the chicken pieces onto a rack over top an oven tray to dry.
You really do need to leave the chicken on the rack for the coating to dry out for at least 10 minutes, so this leaves you plenty of time to get on with the succotash.
Heat the oil in a saute pan then add the onion and peppers. Cook until very soft then add the garlic, chilli and sage. Cook for a few minutes more then add your vegetables  (it's useful to run these under a hot tap just to dispel any ice). Cook until everything is hot and the beans tender, about 6 minutes. Leave with a lid on to stay warm.
Preheat the oven to 220 degrees Celsius, 200 degrees fan.
Heat up a pig skillet full of oil or a block of sold cooking fat in a big solid pan and heat until a grain of rice bubbles and browns within 10 seconds, then add your chicken pieces. The oil really must be searing to make that crust as crispy as possible. Only put in 3 at a time so the oil stays hot. Cook until they have a really dark gold crispy skin, about 3-5 minutes either side should do then return to the wire rack to let oil drip off. Because the chicken is undercooked both before and after touching the rack there's no need to worry about cross contamination. When all the other chicken pieces are fried, slide the chicken on its rack over its baking tray into the oven and continue to cook until the chicken is no longer pink, 15-20 minutes should do.

Fougasse

I've got a recipe for fougasse already, it was posted about a year ago but this isn't a reiteration, it's the real thing. I reread my recipe, including the strange combo of rosemary and parmesan, and not only was the bread merely white bread cut into a leaf shape, I didn't actually mention anywhere adding the titular rosemary or parmesan.
A real fougasse is a grainy and strongly flavoured concoction from sun-scorched south of France- they really are keen on bread shaped like plants down there (take Pain D'epi, a stick of white bread cut into a stalk of wheat) and this particular loaf is cut into a huge leaf. Well at least it should be; my version is cut into a clumsy bulbous tropical variety, and this could be construed as not a fougasse as I don't make holes that join at the edge, but that's okay, because it's homemade.
The key to such a flavoursome and well-keeping crust is in the sponge, or poolish as the French call it. Consider this a pre-ferment that you need to start long before the first prove; I just make it up the night before and let it bubble up in the fridge overnight. The longer you leave it, the better the flavour and longer the bread will last before staling.
Before you consider making this, I strongly recommend you invest in a scraper- they're cheap as chips and a plastic one is fine, although I have a metal one. They're invaluable in kneading the sticky dough and cutting the attractive leaf shape. This advice and inspiration for this recipe came by youtube's The Bread Kitchen, and I'm very grateful for it.

For the sponge/poolish: 150g strong white bread flour (this is a rough cup measure if you're that way inclined)
200ml water (cold tap water is fine)
1 x 7g sachet active dried yeast

500ml water
10g table salt
500g strong white bread flour
150g Rye flour (or use another 150g bread flour if preferred)
200g mixed marinated olives (you can buy them like this, but otherwise you could buy regular olives and marinate them in extra virgin olive oil and some herbs of your choice)
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Prepare the sponge the night before, or at least 2 hours before mixing the rest of the dough. Mix all the ingredients together well then cover with lightly oiled clingfilm and leave to prove in the fridge overnight, or at room temperature for the 2 hours. When it's ready it will be hugely bubbled up with intricate webs and tunnels, rather like a bread beehive. Without the bother of letting the poolish come back to room temperature, stir in the 500ml water until relatively smooth (hands are a great tool) and then add the salt and flours and mix until all flour is absorbed and you have an incredibly sticky dough. Generously flour the work surface and begin kneading this monster. Your best ally is your scraper, use it to scrape the dough from the surface and gather the dough together and keep kneading until it gets really stretchy and smooth. Bare in mind it will seem that the dough isn't smooth, but the straggly bits are an illusion created by the dough sticking to your hands. Every now and then, leave the dough on a film of flour and wipe your hands clean, that way you can feel that the dough is becoming smoother and not just a mess. A great kneading technique here is the slap and roll: slap the dough down aggressively onto the worktop then fold it over itself, and use the two ends that you hold on to to slap the dough again and repeat. After about 10 minutes, the dough should be ready.
Carefully knead and fold in your olives, they will get properly incorporated (trust me), then oil the mixing bowl and dough and leave to prove for a good 2 hours. The rye, the olives and the fact that the dough is built upon a sponge means that this takes a bit longer than normal bread to rise. Once the dough has doubled in size, punch and pummel it down and turn it out onto a well floured worktop. This makes two loaves, but you could stretch this to three easily. Divide the dough accordingly then transfer each lump to its floured baking sheet. Using a rolling pin or just your hands, flatten it really well to about an inch thickness  (no rulers please). Using your scraper again, cut a great central furrow and open it up and then on each side cut open more holes, until you end up with a big palm leaf shape. Repeat for the other loaf.
Wrap the two up in oiled clingfilm and leave to prove for another 40 minutes.
Preheat your oven to 200 degrees fan then place your two loaves in and bake for about 20 minutes, until golden and makes a hollow sound when rapped. Brush the loaves with the olive oil and then leave them to cool. If you have any hooks in your kitchen, hang them proudly up.

Pumpkin Seed Praline

If you wanted to call this pumpkin seed brittle, be my guest. To paraphrase Juliet Capulet, a praline by any other name would taste as sweet. Not that, actually, this is incredibly sweet- the point about praline is to have the caramel just on the cusp of bitterness so although it's sugary it isn't cloying and the bottle green pumpkin seeds that get strewn in add an oily savouriness of their own. What you end up with is a shard of brittle that looks like a great chunk from a medieval stained-glass window.
This will work fabulously wish many nuts: blanched and flaked almonds, extravagant macadamias, pecans etc. However the important thing is that you buy good, fresh organic ones not the bleached supermarket kind, and although it is true that toasting any nut or seed brings out the flavour, in this context it would mean too much oil would leak into the caramel and you'd get soft chew, not crunch.

All the ingredients are given in the metric system, but it's much easier to use a set of cup measures or even a small mug- it's the ratio that's important which is, 1 cup sugar, to 1/2 cup water to 1/2 cup pumpkin seeds.
200g granulated sugar
125ml water
Good pinch sea salt
125g pumpkin seeds

Place a sheet of lightly oiled foil, or if you own a sheet of non stick silicone do use that, over a baking sheet.
In a medium saucepan with a thick base, mix the sugar, water and salt together until the sugar is immersed and beginning to dissolve and then remove the fork or other stirring utensil and set it well aside before you set a medium-high heat under the pan. Stirring at heating stage is forbidden and will cause your caramel to crystallise. As the sugar melts, gently swirl the pan to help the process along. Without leaving the pan unattended, allow the sugar to boil for about 6 minutes until it thickens and turns a deep gold, but you mustn't let it go very dark or it will taste bitter. Switch off the heat and quickly scatter over the pumpkin seeds and swirl to cover them in the caramel. Pour it onto your sheet of foil and let it set calmly at room temperature before peeling away the foil and snapping into shards, ready to be dunked into strong black coffee or scrunched over vanilla ice cream.

A Nanny McPhee picnic- Strawberry Vanilla Jam and Lemonade

The age of picnics is far behind us, but that doesn't mean picnic food is to be tossed aside as well. These two recipes evoke a perfect Summer scene accompanying the Famous Five or Nanny McPhee on a spread blanket dotted with different dishes. While that ideal is outdated, these characters all lived in the grey age of Victorian austerity and where 'lashings of boiled egg' were considered an enormous treat, I implore you to conjure the same amount of joy from a picnic comprising of kale smoothie and spiralised cauliflower.
Yes these recipes are old-fashioned, yes these two foodstuffs are nothing you can't buy in any shop and yes they take a moderate degree of kitchen pottering, but that is why they are such wonderful things to make. Just a jar of luscious, jewel-red strawberry and vanilla jam to be eaten with thick slices of white bread and a thermos of fuzzy lemonade will leave everyone enamoured with glee in the park- despite the pain of plastic forks and paper plates to be disposed of later, but so ist das Leben. And unlike Miss McPhee, when you want these recipes, they will be here for as long as you desire.
This doesn't make a huge amount of jam, I filled 4 medium jars with it but it lasts a good year in well-sterilised jars and small amounts is the easiest way with making preserves; great vatfuls of conserve are difficult to finish in your alloted time and difficult to boil with the rapidity you need for jam. The lemonade here will be enough to serve an intimate group of 4-6 but the recipe is a doddle to half or double.

Strawberry Vanilla Jam
1kg small, underripe strawberries (crunchy sour ones from the supermarket are counterintuitively best here)
1 kg jam sugar (this isn't preserving sugar, you need to look for the extra pectin advertised on the packet)
Juice of 1 lemon
3 vanilla pods

Before you begin, you must ensure your chosen jars are sterilised. Any jars will do, you can buy kilners especially but I keep any jar with a nice shape and pretty lid for preserves. The easiest way to sterilise them is to put them in the hottest dishwasher cycle, and once they're done leave them in the hot machine until ready to use. The other method is more labour intensive but still easy: scrub jar and lid well in scalding hot soapy water, rinse them in more hot water then place them on a baking tray in a low oven (150 degrees) for 10 minutes to dry, then switch the oven off and leave them in there to stay warm.
Place a saucer or small plate into the freezer (this will allow you to check the jam later)
Hull the strawberries then place them in a very large, strong pan with the lemon juice and heat them gently until they begin to break down a little. Splay open the vanilla pods and scrape out as many black seeds as you can and then throw the pod and seeds into the pan. Add all the sugar and bring to the boil over medium heat and boil for 5 minutes.
Take the saucer out of the freezer and blob a small bit of jam onto it then leave for a moment. Push your finger into the jam and you should see it ripple or wrinkle. If it doesn't so much, remember the time that you spent checking this with the jam boiling should cover any uncertainty. If it doesn't wrinkle at all, leave to boil for a few more minutes then check again.
Switch the jam off the heat and leave for 20 minutes so the fruit disperses itself evenly amongst the jelly. Fish out the vanilla pods, scraping them against the side of the pan to squeeze out as many spare seeds as possible then rinse and dry them to be placed in a jar of caster sugar to make vanilla sugar. Then, take a masher to the berries so they crush a small amount more (you certainly don't want a complete mush) and give a final stir before pouring into the jars. If you want to use a jug for this, the jug must be sterile too but a ladle is fine for this task. Gingerly screw the lids on then allow to cool completely before labelling.

Lemonade

2 medium sized lemons (I don't buy unwaxed lemons and I have to say I don't mind using waxy ones here, but if you do mind scrub the wax off in hot, hot water)

1 litre chilled water (if you want it fizzy use half soda water)

75g granulated sugar (5 tbsp)

Lots of fresh ice

Chop up the lemons, discarding the head and tail ends and put them all into a jug blender with the sugar and blitz until the lemons are a pureed mulch. This may seem alarming, but it's the quickest way to make homemade lemonade- most other recipes call for steeping chopped lemons in the water and then making a simple syrup, and using the whole fruit gives a wonderful bitter intensity. With the motor running, add the water then strain the whole lot through a fine sieve. The lemon puree leftover I frankly discard, but adding this to a marmalade being made would add a divine lemony hit. Chill well before pouring into glasses or plastic cups.

If you wanted, and this is a special preference for my mother, muddle a sprig of mint in your fist then leave it to infuse the lemonade while it chills in the fridge. And also, as another variant, you can throw in a handful of frozen raspberries or strawberries and make a lovely sunny jug of pink lemonade

Roasted Pork Shanks with Beer and Crunchy Crackling

This recipe had far less humble beginnings. I came across it first from Nigella Lawson, of course, and immediately recreated it, but in a brasher fashion than the recipe ever was intended. I called it ale braised pork shoulder and seasoned it with what I described as 'European spirit' which involved heady amounts of juniper, which I'm afraid I struggle with since an event at New Year's which involved a bottle of cheap gin and no glasses... What the recipe really derives from is something eaten so often in Germany, but so tragically underrated and it starts with the humble pork knuckle, or hock.
The best way I can describe pork knuckles (or shanks, a similar cut which I've used here) is actually with the language from where the dish hails. The word for wrist in German is roughly 'Kneckle' and the wrist of the pig is essentially what a pork knuckle is, slightly prior the actual joint. Of course nowadays the main, or indeed sole, translation of wrist is 'Handgelenk', literally meaning hand joint. When the hock is cured (and you must make sure that they aren't when you make this) it sometimes is called 'Eisbein' for its' bone's use in history to make ice skates to go parading over frozen rivers. This is how gratifying the German language is: not only its reliance on guttural consonants such as Z or K (say 'ziemlich' aloud, it will make your day) but their literal method of constructing words make for simple poetry.
The dish itself is actually incredibly simple, and is what home cooking is all about- the bronze shanks glazed in ale and surrounded by angular pieces of potato, which soak up some of the beer and end up looking inexplicably like burnished mango cubes. The best part is all effort for the roast ceases once it's in the oven, so for all it takes hours, you needn't do a thing save for a little basting. To serve with go for some steamed green vegetables- something mustardy and sulphurous like leeks or cabbage or go further into the land of rye and veal and open a jar of sauerkraut.

2 pork shanks, or knuckles with the rind scored
3 tsp coarse salt
3 tsp peppercorns
3 tsp caraway seeds
3 cloves garlic, peeled
250ml dark ale but not stout
4 red potatoes, peeled and cut into roastie-sized cubes

Before you begin you must make sure you are in the best position for crunchy crackling. That means the rind must be scored well and it is free of clingfilm and had a few hours for the rind to air dry, and the oven is preheated to a blisteringly hot 220 degrees Celsius. If the rind is still moist then take a hair drier to it- no joke.
In a pestle and mortar grind the salt, pepper and seeds to a coarse powder then grind or mince in the garlic and mix to a gluey rub. Rub it all over the shanks until you can see the score marks in black- that's the easiest way to tell. Place them in a roasting tin and put them in the oven for their first blast for 20 minutes.
Once they've had their blistering first cooking time, turn the oven down to 150 and slow roast it for 2 hours. By then the rind should have begun to bubble and erupt as though it's got the bubonic plague, in the most appetising way.
After the 2 hours, add the potatoes under and around the shanks and then pour in the beer, making sure to hit the pork with the stream of ale.
Roast for another 1 1/2 hours, basting every half hour or so with beer then blast it again at 200 for another 20 minutes.
Remove from the oven and place the shanks and potatoes on a board to rest. Don't panic, if the crackling feels a bit too soft at this stage, the rest will give time to solidify any leaking fat and the crackling will be as solid as a rock. Cover the board with foil or scrunched up parchment paper and rest for a good 20 minutes- I always like to give meat a generous resting period.
To serve, break apart the crackling into amber shards and shred the butter-soft meat with a couple of forks. Instead of a gravy, I just add a dabble of water into the tin to deglaze all the sticky bits- you end up with a runny syrup rather than a gravy but that's how I like it.