A hunk of impossibly tender, juicy pork meat on the bone, all wrapped in crispy crackling skin, you say? Called Schweinshaxe, this slow-roasted German Pork Knuckle comes with a richly-flavoured beer gravy. Of the many things Germans have perfected, pork roast is right up there. Always served in a puddle of dark and malty beer gravy, Pork Knuckle is loved by Germans for its beer can chicken rub, lip-smackingly rich meat on the bone, all wrapped in a sheath of golden crackling that shatters under a knife.
And once you have, nothing else ever goes down quite as well with a giant stein of cold German beer! It’s the shape of the pork knuckle that makes it hard to get perfect crackling all over. Crackling is easy enough when the skin is level and flat as in pork belly and shoulder, due to even heat distribution. With Pork Knuckle, the skin is wrapped around the bone and oriented vertically. Firstly, due to height and thus temperature difference in the oven, the top and bottom skin areas of the knuckle are harder to cook evenly. Secondly, the skin shrinks as it roasts, causing creases and folds which never turn into good crackling. So how do you get perfect crispy crackling for Pork Knuckle?
