Ham Hock Pot Liquor

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Large stockpot (8-quart minimum)
• •Fine-mesh strainer
• •Slotted spoon for skimming
• •Quart-sized mason jars for storage

Instructions

1. 1

   Inspect your ham hocks

   Look at those ham hocks before they go in the pot. You want deeply smoked specimens with a good layer of fat and skin still attached. The skin and connective tissue are where the magic lives, all that collagen that turns into body and richness. If your hocks are pale or trimmed too lean, find a better butcher.

   Country ham hocks have more intense flavor than city ham. If you can find them, use them. The salt content is higher, so hold off on seasoning until the end.
2. 2

   Build your pot

   Place the ham hocks in your largest stockpot. Nestle the quartered onion, celery pieces, and halved garlic head around them. Scatter in the bay leaves, peppercorns, and red pepper flakes. Pour in the cold water until the hocks are submerged by at least two inches. Cold water is essential because it extracts flavor slowly and cleanly.

3. 3

   Bring to a gentle simmer

   Set the pot over medium-high heat and bring it just to the edge of a boil. You will see foam rising to the surface. Skim it away with a large spoon. This takes patience, maybe fifteen minutes of skimming, but your liquor will be cleaner for it. Once the foam turns from gray to white, reduce heat until you see lazy bubbles rising every few seconds.

   A rolling boil makes cloudy, greasy pot liquor. You want the gentlest simmer possible, what my grandmother called 'smiling water' because the surface barely moves.
4. 4

   Simmer low and long

   Let the pot simmer uncovered for three and a half to four hours. The kitchen will smell like a smokehouse married a garden. The hocks are ready when the meat pulls away from the bone with zero resistance and the skin has turned soft and gelatinous. The liquid should have reduced by about a third and taken on a deep amber color.

5. 5

   Add brightness

   Stir in the apple cider vinegar during the last fifteen minutes of cooking. This small addition cuts through the richness and wakes everything up. Taste the liquor now. It should taste deeply of smoke and pork with gentle heat in the background. Add salt only if needed. Remember, smoked hocks carry salt with them.

6. 6

   Strain and reserve

   Remove the ham hocks to a cutting board. Strain the pot liquor through a fine-mesh strainer into a large bowl or another pot, pressing gently on the vegetables to extract every drop of flavor. Discard the spent aromatics. You should have about three quarts of liquid gold.

   For crystal-clear liquor, strain through cheesecloth. For everyday cooking, the fine-mesh strainer is plenty good.
7. 7

   Pick the meat

   Once the hocks cool enough to handle, pull the meat from the bones. Discard the skin and fat if you prefer, though I often chop the soft skin and add it back. The tender meat can go into your greens, beans, or soup. Nothing gets wasted in a Louisiana kitchen.

8. 8

   Store properly

   Let the pot liquor cool to room temperature, then refrigerate. The fat will rise and solidify on top, forming a protective seal. Scrape off some or all of the fat before using, depending on how rich you want your final dish. The liquor beneath will be slightly jellied from all that extracted collagen. That jelly is flavor.

Chef Tips

• •Seek out ham hocks from a proper butcher or smokehouse. The supermarket versions work, but artisan-smoked hocks have deeper flavor that shows in the final liquor.
• •The ratio matters less than the method. Use enough water to cover the hocks by two inches, then let time do the work. More hocks means richer liquor.
• •Save your Parmesan rinds and toss one into the pot. The cheese adds umami depth that plays beautifully with the smoke. That's a trick I learned running Lagniappe's kitchen.
• •When cooking greens in this liquor, add the pot liquor cold and let everything come up to temperature together. The greens absorb more flavor this way than if you add them to boiling liquid.

Advance Preparation

• •Pot liquor keeps refrigerated for up to one week with the fat cap intact. The fat seals out air and preserves freshness.
• •Freezes beautifully for up to six months. Freeze in measured portions so you can pull out exactly what you need for a pot of greens or beans.
• •The picked ham hock meat freezes separately for three months. Portion it into bags for easy addition to dishes.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 240g)