GREAT STORECUPBOARD FINDS No. 5
No. 5 Pulled Ham Hock Not strictly "storecupboard" as this item needs to be kept in the fridge. Nor is it some kind of peculiar bucolic sport from deepest Dorset: "Arrr, I'll be a-pulling your ham hocks later, my loverrr" ( that's enough local dialect. Ed. ) This is another ingredient that reminds me of my childhood. My mother cooked ham hocks fairly regularly, braising them slowly until the fat turned sticky and the meat fell easily from the bone. She used to serve them with onion or mustard sauce. She also cooked pigs' trotters, and I have never ever been squeamish about eating most parts of the animal since.... I have always been rather averse to products like this, which I consider to be "lazy" ingredients. I would prefer to buy the ham hock, cook it and "pull" it myself, but ham hocks are hard to find these days, unless you have a specialist butcher nearby, or happen to work around the corner from Smithfield Meat Market (as