 |
| PORKTOBERFEST |
Woo-hoo! The warmer weather is here! How lovely was Sunday? (That is, the Sunday
after the first warm Sunday of the year). We had our first barbecue of the season! It was originally planned as a quiet Sunday lunch, but developed into a rather epic barbecue luncheon, affectionately titled: PORKTOBERFEST.
I arrived at PORKTOBERFEST in a rather circuitous fashion, so let me explain.
After I got
Nigella's Kitchen, one of the most enticing recipes was the
beer-braised pork knuckles with caraway, garlic, apples and potatoes. I know, right? Nigella prefaces the recipe with a 2-page explanation of her love of German food, and the German language! She singles out
Bienenstich cake as "confectionary of the gods".
Bienenstich, you may remember, is
my favourite German cake. Her love of it just proves how much Nigella rocks.
Now, pork knuckle isn't the type of thing one should eat alone, (
believe me, I've tried!), so I thought it would be a good dish to make for friends, and the "pork-knuckle lunch" was born. After we'd invited everyone, I also realised that we'd organised our pork-knuckle lunch for the first Sunday in October... which is traditionally the end of
Oktoberfest! So the pork-knuckle lunch morphed into
Oktoberfest.
Last week, encouraged by the lovely warmer weather, we also bought a barbecue! It's a very cute little
Weber Smokey Joe Grill, and I love it! It's aimed at young people who've just moved out of home - perfect! The
Oktoberfest party seemed to be the perfect opportunity to break out the new BBQ, so on Saturday we drove down to Andrew's in Yarraville and bought a crazy amount of sausages. (Free-range Otway pork knuckles were purchased across the street at Yarraville Village Butcher). And thus,
Oktoberfest became PORKTOBERFEST.
PORKTOBERFEST for 6 Hungry PeopleBeer-braised Pork Knuckles with Caraway, Garlic and Apples
Sausages - Cheese Kranskys, Bratwurst, Cumberland chipolatas
Mashed Potatoes
Rotkohl
Scharfer Senf, Ketchup
Beer
Mojitos
Iced Coffee
Old-Fashioned CheesecakeThe recipes for the both cheesecake and the knuckles come from
Kitchen, of course. I'll do a separate post about the cheesecake soon, as I feel this post is already getting dangerously long! The pork itself wasn't too difficult - you just rub it with garlic, caraway and salt, and chuck it in the oven. (The butcher did the tough job of scoring the rind). It only takes about 3 hours in total, so it wasn't too bad getting up in the late morning to get started. Too easy!
I tried standing them up like in the book, but the knuckles didn't have a flat base so they just fell over, and I roasted them on their sides. In the tin along with the hocks are apple slices, onions and beer. Nigella suggests adding potatoes, but I wanted mash so I skipped them. And now, looking back at the photos, I realise that potatoes wouldn't have fit in the tin anyway.
 |
| Midway through roasting, time to baste the hocks again! |
While the pork was cooking, there was heaps of time to clean up the house, make the mash and red cabbage, and prepare the drinks.
 |
| BIER (and Gin)... and limes! |
Mojito station! Not exactly German, but a perfect BBQ drink nonetheless.
 |
| Mojito Station |
Sandra was in charge of the BBQ, which was a good thing as I shouldn't be allowed anywhere near open fires! We had cheese kranskys,
Bratwurst and cumberland chipolatas.
 |
| Barbecueing sausages on Weber Smokey Joe Grill. How cute is the BBQ!! |
One of the great things about roasting pork is that your whole house smells delicious, and your friends will invariably drift towards the pork...
 |
| We want pork...! |
 |
| Ta-Dah! |
Pretty. I've never cooked pork knuckle before, and I was quite pleased with how it turned out. The only issue was that unlike
pork shoulder or
leg, I was unable to pull off the rind and put it back in the oven for proper crispening. This meant that there wasn't a lot of nice crackling for us, although it was probably for the best.
 |
| Carving - Wusthof Carving Knife & Fork RULE! |
 |
| Carved |
Below we have the roasted apples (like applesauce but easier), and the fabulicious oniony pan juices.
 |
| Onion gravy... roasted apples |
You know, I was expecting leftovers - there were 6 of us, and the knuckle
alone was meant to be enough for 6 people - but somehow, sitting around and laughing and talking, we somehow ate ALL the meat and ALL the sausages. Oops. What can I say? My friends must really love sausages. Heh.
 |
| Eisbein |
After a bit of a rest, some more drinks, a lot of laughs and doing the dishes, we hunkered down for dessert. First up - iced coffee!
 |
| Making ice coffee |
We brewed a big pot of coffee in the morning and let it cool down. To the cold coffee we added Baileys, milk and vanilla ice-cream, for some cold-and-creamy refreshment.
 |
| Baileys Iced Coffee |
And then cheesecake... (only in tiny slices because we'd really had quite a large lunch and I'm sure everyone was just being polite...)
All in all it was a fabulous, fabulous afternoon! Big thanks to my friends Alae,
Sophia, Tim and SuSu for wonderful company and supplying the German beer! Shall we make PORKTOBERFEST a yearly tradition?
|
| PORKTOBERFEST |
Woo-hoo! The warmer weather is here! How lovely was Sunday? (That is, the Sunday
after the first warm Sunday of the year). We had our first barbecue of the season! It was originally planned as a quiet Sunday lunch, but developed into a rather epic barbecue luncheon, affectionately titled: PORKTOBERFEST.
I arrived at PORKTOBERFEST in a rather circuitous fashion, so let me explain.
After I got
Nigella's Kitchen, one of the most enticing recipes was the
beer-braised pork knuckles with caraway, garlic, apples and potatoes. I know, right? Nigella prefaces the recipe with a 2-page explanation of her love of German food, and the German language! She singles out
Bienenstich cake as "confectionary of the gods".
Bienenstich, you may remember, is
my favourite German cake. Her love of it just proves how much Nigella rocks.
Now, pork knuckle isn't the type of thing one should eat alone, (
believe me, I've tried!), so I thought it would be a good dish to make for friends, and the "pork-knuckle lunch" was born. After we'd invited everyone, I also realised that we'd organised our pork-knuckle lunch for the first Sunday in October... which is traditionally the end of
Oktoberfest! So the pork-knuckle lunch morphed into
Oktoberfest.
Last week, encouraged by the lovely warmer weather, we also bought a barbecue! It's a very cute little
Weber Smokey Joe Grill, and I love it! It's aimed at young people who've just moved out of home - perfect! The
Oktoberfest party seemed to be the perfect opportunity to break out the new BBQ, so on Saturday we drove down to Andrew's in Yarraville and bought a crazy amount of sausages. (Free-range Otway pork knuckles were purchased across the street at Yarraville Village Butcher). And thus,
Oktoberfest became PORKTOBERFEST.
PORKTOBERFEST for 6 Hungry PeopleBeer-braised Pork Knuckles with Caraway, Garlic and Apples
Sausages - Cheese Kranskys, Bratwurst, Cumberland chipolatas
Mashed Potatoes
Rotkohl
Scharfer Senf, Ketchup
Beer
Mojitos
Iced Coffee
Old-Fashioned CheesecakeThe recipes for the both cheesecake and the knuckles come from
Kitchen, of course. I'll do a separate post about the cheesecake soon, as I feel this post is already getting dangerously long! The pork itself wasn't too difficult - you just rub it with garlic, caraway and salt, and chuck it in the oven. (The butcher did the tough job of scoring the rind). It only takes about 3 hours in total, so it wasn't too bad getting up in the late morning to get started. Too easy!
I tried standing them up like in the book, but the knuckles didn't have a flat base so they just fell over, and I roasted them on their sides. In the tin along with the hocks are apple slices, onions and beer. Nigella suggests adding potatoes, but I wanted mash so I skipped them. And now, looking back at the photos, I realise that potatoes wouldn't have fit in the tin anyway.
|
| Midway through roasting, time to baste the hocks again! |
While the pork was cooking, there was heaps of time to clean up the house, make the mash and red cabbage, and prepare the drinks.
|
| BIER (and Gin)... and limes! |
Mojito station! Not exactly German, but a perfect BBQ drink nonetheless.
|
| Mojito Station |
Sandra was in charge of the BBQ, which was a good thing as I shouldn't be allowed anywhere near open fires! We had cheese kranskys,
Bratwurst and cumberland chipolatas.
|
| Barbecueing sausages on Weber Smokey Joe Grill. How cute is the BBQ!! |
One of the great things about roasting pork is that your whole house smells delicious, and your friends will invariably drift towards the pork...
|
| We want pork...! |
|
| Ta-Dah! |
Pretty. I've never cooked pork knuckle before, and I was quite pleased with how it turned out. The only issue was that unlike
pork shoulder or
leg, I was unable to pull off the rind and put it back in the oven for proper crispening. This meant that there wasn't a lot of nice crackling for us, although it was probably for the best.
|
| Carving - Wusthof Carving Knife & Fork RULE! |
|
| Carved |
Below we have the roasted apples (like applesauce but easier), and the fabulicious oniony pan juices.
|
| Onion gravy... roasted apples |
You know, I was expecting leftovers - there were 6 of us, and the knuckle
alone was meant to be enough for 6 people - but somehow, sitting around and laughing and talking, we somehow ate ALL the meat and ALL the sausages. Oops. What can I say? My friends must really love sausages. Heh.
|
| Eisbein |
After a bit of a rest, some more drinks, a lot of laughs and doing the dishes, we hunkered down for dessert. First up - iced coffee!
|
| Making ice coffee |
We brewed a big pot of coffee in the morning and let it cool down. To the cold coffee we added Baileys, milk and vanilla ice-cream, for some cold-and-creamy refreshment.
|
| Baileys Iced Coffee |
And then cheesecake... (only in tiny slices because we'd really had quite a large lunch and I'm sure everyone was just being polite...)
All in all it was a fabulous, fabulous afternoon! Big thanks to my friends Alae,
Sophia, Tim and SuSu for wonderful company and supplying the German beer! Shall we make PORKTOBERFEST a yearly tradition?
reade more...
Résuméabuiyad
Our family was finishing up our month-long test drive of the Chevy Malibu and I was so excited to make little iPod cookies to celebrate the fabulous sound system.
Well, these are not the cookies that were in my head. The screen is too small and therefore my plan for what to put on the screen didn't work. No matter what I did to them, they just didn't look cute...and I like my cookies cute. These cookies? Blah.
I *almost* didn't post these, but thought, surely, someone out there can share in my misery. (And, believe me, there are a lot more fails where these came from!)
