I like the hosta shoot - but who are you kidding on eating hocks? They have flavor for bean or pea soup, but there certainly isn;t enough meat to consider that a meal.

A

How did you get them so crisp? Some of them are very meaty, and I love the rice "cake"!

They don't really look crisp to me - they look dried out, like a dog chew. And as far as meaty - maybe if you dont mind eating fat and gristle along with the few shreds of meat... I always use them to flavor beans then toss them out.

Alexa

Boy, lamb is expensive, makes me glad I don't like the stuff.

I also throw hocks in a pot of beans, but Dad used to like them as the meat component in "boiled dinner", with potatoes and cabbage. The amount of actual meat depends on how far up the "hock" they cut them.

I also like the rice, very pretty, but I didn't know you could eat hosta. Or is that just a decoration? I know the deer eat them here like they're gourmet fare, so I didn't even bother to plant them.

Annie

For me eating is for enjoyment and for good health.

Some foods are tasty, but are just bad for health. Pork hock is not too good because of the fat, and Alexa is correct that the skin and gristle can be tough like dog chew.

So what do you do?

First, like Annie said, depending on where it is cut; hock has lots of tender flavorful meat. In the photo, if you flip the hocks over, you will see itÂs all meat.

I never cook hocks and beans together because of the fat. I have other ways of making hocks and beans.

For this dish, I first marinate the hocks overnight. The nice brown color was not from burning. It was from a few table spoons of dark soy sauce.

Then I pressure cooked the hocks until the skin turned very soft, the gristle tender and most of the grease rendered out from the fat and marrow.

Then the hocks went into the BBQ to be smoked at low temperature.

Then the hocks were BBQ at high heat to have the skin crispy.

The hocks were meaty and lean; the gristle tender and the skin soft and crispy like roasted pig.

I used the juice from pressure cooking the hocks to flavor the rice.

Yes, young hosta is a very tasty vegetable. A side dish of stir fried hosta was also part of this meal.

I made 6 lbs of smoked hocks.

dcarch

I made 6 lbs of smoked hocks.

Whew - thank goodness! As I was reading through those steps I was thinking, "All that work and that plate wouldn't fill my 2 year old!"

Intersting about eating them as a dish on their own. I always thought of hocks more as a boullion cube. Who knew.

Hey dcarch - How close are you to Pelham Manor? There's a Fairway Market opening up within the week. I'd be interested in your take on it. Then again, you seem to already have good food sources.

Amen, Alexa!

dcarch, I like your artistic compositions, but the use of smoked ham hocks in this post is just wrong, IMO!

Ham hocks (not HOG hocks) are meant to be cooked long to flavor beans, soup, stew, greens, etc. I usually shred the meat from the cooked hocks and add it back to the pot of whatever I'm cooking.

Teresa

Has everyone here heard the phrase "Thinking outside the box"?

Apparently not. Sad.

Don't let them get to you, dcarch.

And my guess is that 'ham hocks' are what you get when you buy them already smoked.
'Hog hocks' would be the same cut, but raw.
Like the difference between ham and a pork roast.

Notice he smoked them AFTER he marinated and cooked them.

Keep up the good work, dcarch.
I'd eat it in a New York minute!

Rusty

Oh, for goodness' sake. Nobody is going after dcarch personally. Eating hog hocks as a main course is not exactly thinking outside of the box, it is an iconic dish in many parts of the world, with regional distinctions. When I was in Germany, I ate a dish called schweinshaxe, which translates roughly to hog hocks. It is a treasured dish there. But here is the thing; in Germany, it looks so delicious, you can't wait to dig in. Dcarch's presentation doesn't invite you to dig in. It misses the drool factor that food photography should have. (His sushi picture had it in spades) This is a picture of different items on a plate with no connection to each other. They don't seem to marry well.
jo

Here is a link that might be useful: Who doesn't want to try this hog hock?

It's perhaps not dcarche's most successful food composition but, after reading how the hocks were prepared, I get it. At first look they appeared to be the hard, tough smoked ham hocks you get from the store. I now know that is not the case. After thorough cooking with moisture ham hocks are quite edible. Like most of us I have not cooked them as a separate dish, but why not?

Jim

Rusty , Darch has said many times that he posts certain compositions and food to elicit response. Like any artist the impact will vary. The responses are individual reaction to the visuals. Like any artist Arch is expecting a variety of responses.

You really need to stop making every one of these threads out to be an attack on Arch. They aren't and you do him a disservice to make them contentious.

I would love to eat whatever darch posts a picture of. I have eaten ham hocks that have been boiled in a pot with collard,mustard or turnip greens but have never eaten them smoked and grilled.

From Chase:
"You really need to stop making every one of these threads out to be an attack on Arch."

That was most definitely NOT my intention!
I merely intended to point out that one poster in particular was a bit narrow minded in their response and/or idea of the uses of pork hocks, and their appearance. It actually reads quite rude, IMO.

Also tried to explain to another poster that I believe 'ham hocks' and 'hog hocks' define different forms of the same cut.

Just saying.. ... .

Rusty

Here's a GW thread from the New England Gardening Forum regarding eating hostas. Early spring greens...like fiddle heads (ostrich ferns).

Rusty, you're right about "ham hocks" v. "hog hocks". I learned that recently from the butcher at Whole Foods when we were ordering our pork belly to make bacon. Smoking our own hog hocks is on our "To Do" list. In darch's case, he mentioned that he smoked them in the BBQ after pressure cooking. I'd not thought about the pressure cooking part but will probably follow his lead when we make ours this fall.

When I was a kid, Mom served ham hocks as the meat next to scalloped potatoes & green beans. Leftovers made sandwiches the next day. I remember those from my childhood as being quite meaty but the ones available in my local grocery store now are about worthless. Glad to know about where they're cut from...I'll have to remember that when we order ours for smoking.

/tricia

Here is a link that might be useful: Edible Hostas

Well Rusty maybe it isn't always necessary to point out an others perceived narrow mindedness. it just seems that every single one of these threads you pipe up with a scolding.

Just saying....

Here in the Austrian restaurant we frequent they are called by the German name 'Eisbein' and they are smoked pork hocks which are boiled and served with sauerkraut, boiled potatoes and hot mustard.

They are enormous in size and I think one of them could feed three people easily. Wolfram tries one from time to time but has had to bring most of them home in a doggy bag.
They have a nice smoky bacon scent but I couldn't face all that skin and fat myself.

(click)

SharonCb

I don't know....but I live in Iowa....and it's a close estimate if there are more hogs than people....but perhaps that's Illinois....but I DO know from pigs!
Never heard any sort of food or meat referred to as "hog"...a hog is a living animal...once it becomes meat it's "pork"...so "hog hocks" is just a little strange. You might have pork hocks or ham hocks depending on if the meat is cured or not....but you for sure don't have "hog hocks".
I like pickled pigs feet which I guess is a German thing. And when I used to get 2 hogs a year butchered, I would ask for some of the hocks to be smoked along with the bacon, I used them for soup or to cook with beans. But to eat...I asked for shanks...a little further away from the foot, more meat.
But at any rate....they are not "hog hocks". An example of using "hog hocks" in a sentence might be "Those hogs on the north side of the lot are up to their hocks in manure, better get that lot cleaned out."
Linda C...in Iowa

Pickled and smoked pork hocks are a German and eastern European "ring" and make wonderful eating. Whether as a main dish for schweinshaxe or the Eisbien, or used to flavor and give more protein to soups and stews they are wonderful. I don't think my mother would serve us a dog chewy! And as for throwing it out after cooking it in a soup, why? What a waste of flavorful meat. Let you soup cool, skim off the fat and eat.

But them again, if you are rolling in dough, I guess you can afford to toss out foods.

I guess it has some to do with what you grow up eating. I wouldn't touch a pork hock or pickled pigs feet but my grandfather loved them. Enormous gobs of skin and fat and he ate them down with delight. Same grandfather that told me pickled pig's ear was a treat. He watched nine decades pass before his heart stopped so they can't be that unhealthy.

If I slaughtered a pig and didn't want to waste parts... well I'd probably have the hock meat thrown in the sausage bucket.

: )
lyra

LindaC, maybe it's a midwestern thing, or maybe it's a farm thing, but here a "pork hock" is fresh and a "ham hock" is smoked, but there's no such thing as a "hog hock", the term "hog" always denotes a live creature over a certain weight. Under that weight it's a pig.

It's the same with beef, a live creature would have a cow hock, but after it's slaughtered, it becomes beef.

And yes, I have those too, and I make them into beef vegetable soup. If they are very far down and there really isn't anything on them, they become chewies for Cooper but they aren't cooked and I never just throw them away.

I'll eat a ham hock or a pork hock without hesitation, but I don't like pickled pigs feet which is something my Mother just loves.

Ah well. Dcarch has posted some pictures that are lovely and some that aren't, and some that are interesting, and quite a few that don't make me want to eat them (or anything else for a while, LOL), but those can still be interesting sometimes.

Annie

What about hog jowls?

shaun, I eat hog jowls. But I have them smoked and cut into "jowl bacon". Yeah, really....

It's just pig cheeks, but that's a whole 'nother thread.

Annie