Krenfleisch

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Large pot (5-liter minimum)
• •Box grater or dedicated horseradish grater
• •Slotted spoon for skimming

Instructions

1. 1

   Start the pork in cold water

   Place the pork belly in a large pot and cover with two liters of cold water. Add the coarse salt. You start in cold water for the same reason you start a good beef broth in cold water: it draws the proteins out gradually and gives you a clean, clear cooking liquid instead of murky grey foam clinging to the meat. Set the pot over medium heat and bring it slowly to a simmer. This should take fifteen to twenty minutes. Don't rush it.

   Ask your butcher for a piece of belly with the bone still in. The bone gives the broth body and the meat stays more tender around it during the long simmer. Skin on is important too. It turns silky and soft, and you can eat it or discard it, but it protects the meat while it cooks.
2. 2

   Skim and add aromatics

   As the water heats, grey foam will rise to the surface. Skim it off with a spoon. Keep skimming until the foam turns white and stops coming. This takes patience, maybe ten minutes. Then add the halved onion, bay leaves, peppercorns, allspice, and juniper berries. The juniper is the quiet signature of Upper Austrian cooking here. It gives the pork a faint Alpine note you can't quite name but would miss if it weren't there.

3. 3

   Simmer low and slow

   Reduce the heat until the surface of the liquid barely trembles. You want lazy bubbles, one every few seconds, not a rolling boil. Add the carrot, parsnip, and celeriac. These aren't garnish. They sweeten the broth and give it depth. Now leave it alone for about an hour and a half. The pork belly is done when a knife slides through the thickest part with almost no resistance. The meat should hold its shape but feel yielding, not tight.

   If you see a hard simmer at any point, your heat is too high. Pork belly cooked aggressively loses its fat unevenly and the lean parts seize up and go stringy. Low and patient is the whole technique here. There is nothing else to this dish except time and temperature.
4. 4

   Prepare the fresh Kren

   While the pork simmers, peel the horseradish root. Grate it finely on a box grater or a dedicated Kren grater if you have one. Work near an open window or turn on a fan, because fresh horseradish will clear your sinuses with an authority that makes onions look polite. Immediately toss the grated Kren with the vinegar, a pinch of sugar, and a pinch of salt. The vinegar stabilizes the heat and stops the horseradish from turning bitter and grey. If you wait too long before adding it, the volatile oils escape and you're left with something bland.

   Gretel always said you should grate the Kren just before serving, never the night before. Horseradish loses its fire within hours. What you want at the table is that sharp, nostril-opening bite that makes your eyes water and then fades into something sweet and clean. Jarred horseradish cannot do this.
5. 5

   Slice the pork

   Lift the pork belly out of the broth and let it rest on a board for five minutes. It will be soft and trembling, the layers of fat between the lean meat gone translucent and yielding. Slice it thick, about a centimeter, cutting across the grain. The slices should hold together but feel like they could fall apart if you looked at them too hard. That's exactly right.

6. 6

   Serve with conviction

   Lay the warm pork slices on a platter or divide among warm plates. Ladle a few spoonfuls of the hot broth over the meat to keep it glistening and warm. Pile the freshly grated Kren alongside, not on top. The cook controls the pork. The eater controls the horseradish. Serve with thick slices of coarse rye bread and whole-grain mustard if you like. This is good Austrian home cooking. Mahlzeit!

Chef Tips

• •The quality of the pork belly is everything. Find a piece from a well-raised pig with good fat marbling between the lean layers. Thin, lean belly from a factory-farmed pig will cook up dry and joyless no matter how patiently you simmer it.
• •Save the cooking broth. Strained and chilled, it makes a beautiful base for bean soups, lentil stews, or just a bowl of broth with bread on a cold evening. It's too good to pour down the drain.
• •If fresh horseradish root is hard to find, try Eastern European grocery shops or farmers' markets in autumn and winter. This is a cold-weather dish and the Kren is in season when you most want to eat it. Don't substitute jarred horseradish. It's a different thing entirely.
• •In Upper Austria, you'll sometimes see Krenfleisch served with boiled potatoes on the side. I won't argue with that. But the bread is what I grew up with, and the way a piece of good rye soaks up the broth from the plate is part of the experience.

Advance Preparation

• •The pork can be simmered a day ahead and stored in its broth in the fridge. Reheat gently in the broth until warmed through. The flavor deepens overnight.
• •The Kren must be grated fresh, no more than thirty minutes before serving. There is no shortcut for this. The fire fades quickly and cannot be brought back.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 400g)