This started out as a post about crackling cornbread muffins. But I found I needed to explain why there was crackling in the first place, which then led back to our efforts to squeeze every last bit of goodness out of our pork hocks. I ended up with a very different (and much longer) post altogether. I’ve (obviously) blogged about pulled meats before, but this was a nice opportunity to gather all my meandering thoughts into the one piece of writing. I hope you enjoy it.. x
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Recently a friend said, “Celia, not everyone can afford free range”.
I understand that completely. We all have different financial circumstances and priorities, and whilst I think the $30 chickens we buy once a month are great value for money, the critical issue is actually having the $30 to spend on them in the first place. Having said that, if we’re clever and creative with how we handle our meat, the results can be both rewarding and reasonably economical.
Let me make a suggestion – if you’re an omnivore and funds are tight, consider searching out pork hocks. If you’re really watching your dollars, these can be found at Asian butchers – often with the trotter still attached – for just $3/kilo. Trotter-less higher welfare hocks will set you back about $8-$9/kilo, but with a little ingenuity, a couple of of these (about $15-$20 worth) can be stretched into a week’s worth of family meals. Here’s how we do it…
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Step 1
A hock is a gloriously economical cut. If you’re buying a whole lower leg portion, ask the butcher to remove the attached trotter for you, and keep it aside to use in a stew or stock. Use a sharp filleting knife and a scraping motion to carefully separate the fat and rind from the meaty part (but don’t throw the rind away). The hock is basically a calf muscle which needs long slow cooking to tenderise it, but it’s packed with flavour.
To save on electricity, I cook two at a time, in two Römertopfs (I have a big oven). I rub them with a combination of brown sugar, sweet and smoked paprika and salt, then pop them into the presoaked clay pots with an inch or so of water. They go (lid on) into a cold oven, and the heat is set to 140C (not fan forced). All up, they get between four to five hours of slow gentle roasting. The hocks are flipped over half way through the cooking time to keep them moist.
When they’re done, the meat will be tender and falling apart – I shred it by hand and end up with a large tray full of sticky, delicious pulled pork.
As I’ve mentioned previously, when life is hectic, I’ll do this on the weekend and use the meat as the basis of several dinners over the course of the following week. The meat, stock and fat also freeze well (in separate containers) for future meals.
A couple of thoughts:
Firstly, our original pulled pork recipe using pork neck would work just as well in the dishes mentioned below. And you don’t necessarily need a Römertopf, Nancy cooked hers in a cast iron pot. I’m sure you could also make it in a slow cooker, but I don’t own one.
Secondly, you might be wondering why I always shred my roasted meats. It’s because they go much further that way – if I was to put an entire pork neck or hock on the table, those hungry wolves of mine would make short work of most of it. By shredding first, I can stretch it out to at least three dinners, with leftovers for a few lunches.
Meat is precious, rich fuel and whilst our portions are always generous, we try not to eat huge slabs of it at any one sitting, especially now that the boys are older. When they were younger, lots of meat seemed to be the only way to keep them full!
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Step 2
When the meat is done, carefully pour the leftover stock from the clay pots into a bowl and pop it into the fridge to set. Once set, scoop out any fat (there will be surprisingly little if the meat has been trimmed well) and set it aside for a batch of Cuban bread or frijoles refritos.
The defatted stock is full of gelatin and will probably have set solid. It is packed with flavour – we heat it very gently to turn it back into a liquid, then cook rice in it (adding extra water if needed). We stir in a little dissolved annatto paste as well for added kick. The stock can also be used for risottos, stir fries or mashed potatoes. I save tiny portions of it in the freezer for adding to pasta sauces.
Here are three dinners which we can pull together easily from our slow roasted hocks (and they’re different enough that I can get away with serving all three in the same week if necessary). We also use the meat in pies, curries and ragù sauces.
There is more than enough meat in two medium-sized hocks for all of the following (providing a generous dinner for four each time)…
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Oven Baked Burritos
pulled pork + rice + tortillas + chipotle salsa + cheese + jalapeños
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Cuban Sandwiches
Cuban bread + pulled pork + broccoli raab + cheese + chilli sauce
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Rice and beans
Rice + pulled pork + frijoles + salsa + salad
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Step 3:
Save the rind from the hock and scrape it clean (if you like, you can save the fat and freeze it until there’s enough to render down into lard). Cut it into squares, salt it lightly, then lay it out on racks over an oven tray. Bake in a slow oven for about three hours until hard and crispy (we usually dry bread on another shelf at the same time). The crackling is hard to resist – I have to hide it in the fridge after we’ve had a few pieces each…
The last time I made crackling, I added the leftovers to cornbread muffins (recipe to follow). Make sure to only use really crispy pieces which won’t go soggy during the baking process…
The leftover muffins were stashed in the freezer for chicken stuffing (as one meal slides into the next).
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I believe that eating meat should be a carefully considered, respectful process. We always try to ask ourselves – how can we make the most of this? Can we save the fat, or the stock, or boil the bones up again for more stock? How many dishes can we get out of this?
In this instance, we’ve tried to use every part of our pork hocks and to stretch the cooked meat as far as possible. In doing so, we’ve eaten healthy, satisfying and frugal meals that my family all enjoy.
Searching out higher welfare meat in “cheaper” cuts can be tricky – most places only offer the premium cuts (at premium prices). To find these hocks, I had to make several phone calls – I finally tracked some down at Haverick Meats. I had to specifically ask for them as they weren’t sitting on the racks in their Saturday store, and at $7.90/kg they were twice the price of their non-free range counterparts.
Even so, they were great value for money – for the $20 I spent, we had enough pulled pork, fat and stock for three family dinners, a Saturday lunch, four loaves of Cuban bread and a dozen cornbread muffins. Plus the satisfaction of knowing that we’d squeezed every last skerrick of goodness out of those pork hocks!
Please share your frugal tips with us – how do you stretch your free range meat dollars?
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 
Great post. I am working on better meal planning and this greatly helps. We have a whole chicken cooking now which I can spread out as well, though as the boys are getting bigger it gets trickier!
Gretchen, thank you, I’m glad you liked it! My two boys eat like wolves, and you’ve got three! Just wait until they hit puberty! :D
I am so not ready for teenage years! They are already pigs!
I love your approach to cooking and eating – it’s so like ours. We eat meat but buy the best we can less often and make it last. We had a roast chicken the the day and ate about a third of it between two. The bones made a stock and then soup, so another meal. Another third of the chicken went into a salad and the last bit into a risotto. And then the pups enjoyed the last scrapings – everyone happy and well fed! We buy hocks too – fantastic flavour, so economical. We make something called cocimiento in Spanish or bollito in Italian – basically boiled meats with lots of veggies and potatoes then leftovers of meat get eaten cold and soup or pies made with the veggies, stock and any meat still left!
Tanya, you’re a kindred food spirit, I’m sure of it! :) I was looking at my chorizo offcuts in the fridge and my bag of white beans, and I thought to myself, “I bet Tanya would know what to do with these..” :) I remember you saying something about stewing them together in the cazuela, will have to go back through your archives! I’ll look out for cocimiento as well, thank you! :)
How funnny – that’s what I’m making today – Fabada! I do have a post on it but it’s basically slowed cooked beans and chorizo with some bay leaves, black pudding and a little pork belly (if you have it), smoked pimenton and a slug of olive oil if you like :) Buen provecho!
I have it all bar the black pudding! Heading over to your blog now for the recipe! :)
Hooray, found it! :)
http://chicaandaluza.com/2011/11/01/fabada-asturian-sausage-and-beans/
I love the look of your Cuban Sandwiches – I have been dreaming about them since seeing the movie – The Chef! These look so tasty and much healthier than the ones in the movie!
Rachel, we make our own Cuban bread – it’s delicious and easy! Recipe is here: https://figjamandlimecordial.com/2014/02/03/pan-cubano/
I love reading about your frugality Ms Celia. It’s what keeps me coming back for more time and time again. The frugality that my mum and grandma engendered deep into me keeps rising to the surface and I hate waste. Obviously, as a vegan, we use less meat but we do try to do the most that we can with it and like you, we make stock from bones, store the fat for using later and use every bit of the meat that we have available. We have free range chooks here and whenever a rooster is culled it gets used. We even use the feet and the head and intestines are buried deep in the compost to help the brew ;). I might sub beans for your pulled pork but the ethos is the same, don’t waste good food and make the most of good free range, organic produce because while it might not be cheap, life is too short for bad wine AND bad food and that old adage “you are what you eat” has never rung truer when it comes to our chemical pesticide and G.M.O. laced mainstream “food” that is on offer in supermarkets.
Fran, it’s so nice to be growing stuff in the garden – whenever I pick a lemon, or a head of broccoli, or lettuce – it’s such a joy to know they haven’t been sprayed or waxed or transported. The frugality and saving money is very rewarding, but it’s not the driving force behind how we eat – I just can’t stand the waste. It’s actually not so bad with veg, as the chooks and the worms will always put that to good use, but wasting meat drives me completely mental!
Right there with you Ms Celia :)
Crackling muffins sounds magical.
Here in New Zealand, the quality of meat varies so much it is hard to believe that 2 such different items can both be called the same cut of meat. Asian butchers usually have cheap meat but you have to be very discerning or very ignorant. Supermarkets here have average quality meat but the specials are good. Anything not on special is not worth buying. Free range butchers are wonderful and about the same price as the supermarket.
Whenever I make pulled pork, I slice off the skin to make crackling because pulled pork buns with coleslaw and crackling is too delicious to resist.
Pulled pork and coleslaw AND crackling sounds like an amazing combination! :)
I always love these posts, and learning how to stretch one meal into others. It started with making stock from leftover chicken bones from a roast, and now I save the lard too. Excited to try all of the above with some humble ham hocks!
See, that makes the time it took me to get this post together all worthwhile! Thanks D.. xx
Great post. Celia, budgeting economy and good housekeeping are words rarely used today, but you are definitely skilled and creative, getting the best for your hard earned dollars. I have similar tricks with an organic chicken, we get 5 meals off each bird!
Sandra, I’d love to read about how you do that! We’re lucky to get more than a couple of meals from a chook – my boys are too hungry! :)
Bear in mind there are only two of us Celia, but here’s a link to a post I wrote a couple of years ago about chicken economy. http://wp.me/p2frs2-7M
This other link is for my method of poaching that guarantees almost no weight loss when cooking a chicken whole. http://wp.me/p2frs2-By
Sandra, that’s fabulous! Thanks for sharing the links!
Great post, Celia… and delicious too! I like the fact that you shred the meat to make it go further… we love doing that too!
Liz, the boys (particularly Small Man) will eat as much meat as goes onto his plate – he’s almost a bottomless pit! Shredding makes it easier to ration.. :D
I agree. we can’t all afford free-range and organic. It’s a bit like our Treasurer who thinks that the poor don’t drive far so a petrol tax won’t hurt them.I think it’s a wonderful thing to encourage the use of lesser cuts of meat, or to teach the usefulness of bones for stock. A chicken can go a very long way as can hocks.well done Celia.
Frugality in itself is also a good thing- even for those who have more ‘cash flow’. I like to use lentils and dried beans during the week. Some of my meals cost 25 cents per person. Last weekend, I lashed out and bought $25.00 worth of seafood. Firstly we ( two people) had Spaghetti with Bass Straight scallops, tossed in oil, butter, garlic chilli, parsley ( last 3 things from the garden). Next night a hot salad of salt and pepper calamari on rocket salad, Next night a prawn pizza, last night a kilo of mussels done the French way ( Moules Mariniere) I don’t need any seafood now for a long time! $25,00 for two, four meals, plus a few garden and pantry items. Might post a story on this too- from a non- meat perspective.
I’d love to read it, Francesca! I don’t have a problem with lashing out on expensive ingredients (when one can afford it), but I hate wasting any of it. Thank goodness for the chooks (as you know). Aren’t mussels an amazing bargain at the moment? Sustainable and organic too! :)
Yes, they are so cheap and such good value. I can pig out on half a kilo or I can stuff a whole kilo and feed a crowd. It is now scallop time here in Vic- a very small window of opportunity. 250 grs goes a long way. I lashed out on Calamari, but squid is just as good and always a bargain. I am sure it is a sustainable seafood.
I love reading about how you plan your meals that roll from one into the next one. I’m nowhere near good enough with that. I get a wild thought about something new I want to eat and the budget is blown. The muffins sound so good and using them for stuffing after that is brilliant.
Maureen, cornbread stuffing is so traditional that we figured it had to be good, and the first time we tried it, we were completely blown away! It’s absolutely delicious and so much nicer than the usual bread stuffing! :)
This is a wonderful example of stretching the “free range dollar” Celia, thanks for sharing it. Your household of growing men has different appetites to ours so we use different items but with a similar philosophy and result. I do think posts such as these can show people that free range and organic are quite within the realm of possible.
Thanks so much Rose for understanding what I was trying to write – it’s not so much about what we do, but the thinking behind it – as you say, every household is different, but we can have similar philosophies! :)
I too shred or thinly slice my meat and poultry to make them go further. I also make a secondary stock from the solids (after making an straining the initial broth) and use this secondary stock for cooking.
Norma, I’ve only just discovered how good a secondary stock can be with my last batch of duck confit – the second boiled duck stock was absolutely perfect for risotto! :)
This was wonderful Celia! Thank you :)
I too have conversations with friends about the cost of organic & free range food. My response is similar to yours, in that it’s all about how you stretch it.
We roast a whole chicken in the beginning of the week and use the meat for various dishes. The carcass is turned into stock, which as you know is a huge savings (a 1 quart carton here is $2!). I also make a big pot of red sauce which is used for bolognese, meatballs etc. On weekends, we grill as much as we can to save on electricity and to make the most out of the large cooking space. We grill random bits and pieces from the fridge to prevent waste, and have plenty of leftovers to eat throughout the week. Win!
Any scraps of fruit that the kids don’t eat ( 1/2 an apple, banana etc) is trimmed, saved and frozen for smoothies and muffins. I make about 80% of their snacks from scratch, cramming as much as I can into the oven at once!
And the list goes on…
I do believe that all of these conscious efforts save big in the end. They help to put a few dollars back into your pocket, so that buying organic & free range here and there could be somewhat of a possibility (if desired). xx
Em, you are such a star, I’ve never saved bits of fruit for later use, but of course they’d be perfect for just about any dessert! And I agree with you – I don’t think I could ever go back to bought stock again! xx
A wonderful post to read . . . again one from which to learn! Sometimes to rap oneself across the knuckles . . . No Chinese butchers out here where Sydney stops being Sydney :) ! Just looked at the pork hock price at the local Woolies: just four times yours!! I guess I basically learned the lesson when I began having stirfries rather regularly: quite amazing how little meat protein one needs to feel satisfied!! Or when making my own wonton and brothers/sisters :D !!
Eha, you’re so right about stirfries – sometimes just a tiny bit of meat and heaps of veg is exactly the right balance! :)
Wonderful post Celia! It really is a bit of peasant mentality that we need to get back to- fresh food, respected and valued and nothing wasted at all. I have a friend who just doesn’t understand how I keep my food budget so low while we eat such great meals, but she only eats chicken breast while we eat thighs and she discards bruised fruit instead of cutting that part away.
My freezer is always brimming over with odds and ends waiting to be put to use, last week I served up a Horner Pie- remember Little Jack Horner from the nursery rhyme? Well this pie was the last of all the bits of roasts from last Christmas, mixed with minced veggies and gravy and topped with scraps of home made pastry that were also left over from a previous meal. Delicious, nutritious, and practically ‘free’. Waste not, want not, is as true now as it ever has been, and I so admire you and your food philosopy as well as your respect for produce and quality ingredients. Thanks for sharing it with the rest of us too xox
Becca, you’re so clever at using up bits and pieces! I love the idea of Horner Pie! I turned a leftover chermoula casserole into pie for dinner the other night – simply topped it with some of the lard pastry I had in the freezer, and dinner was sorted. I think thighs are a much nicer bit of meat than chicken breast – your poor friend doesn’t realise what she’s missing out on! :)
I love the way you cook as much as the big supermarkets would hate it. They work so hard to convince shoppers that pre-prepared, pre-packaged convenience is better. Which depends on the type of convenience one is aiming for. And I love seeing the comments to this post showing how we’re all on the same page, in various stages of doing it or wanting to.
We afford to eat free range and/or organic but preferably “proper” free range vs bucolic imagery packaged free range by buying what we need, and like you cooking it from scratch, eating it all over several meals and not throwing anything out. We don’t eat out a lot. We have cheap freezer & pantry weeks where we eat what’s on hand, to balance out the other sometimes more expensive weeks when we shop.
ED, you’ve hit the nail on the head there, it’s all about balance! We eat spendy items as well, but then there are nights like last night when the entire meal for four cost us just $1.50. And it was perfectly delicious too! :)
So many great issues you raise here Celia. Cheap meat is expensive… for animal welfare, the environment and our health (see the recent intensively reared chicken scandal in the UK). “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.”
Sally, you’re so right of course, it really is false economy. The UK chicken stuff is very scary!
All those meals you prepared looked delicious, particularly the oven baked burritos. I’m hungry.
The burritos are so easy – they’re our homemade “takeaway” because everything comes out of the freezer! :)
I think it’s so wonderful that you have so much respect for the animals that feed us that you make sure everything they give us is used, right down to the last grain/drop. I love your pulled pork recipe for hocks and I must try to source some and see how I too can feed my family. I’m really trying to be less wasteful and you are my inspiration! xx
Thanks hon! I don’t think you’re wasteful at all! You make gorgeous dinners for your lucky family! :)
Celia you are so very clever. I need to start practicing for when Ollie gets bigger. I know he’s going to be a very big eater!
Thanks Claire! Just you wait, that little man of yours is going to be an eating powerhouse! :)
What a wonderful post Celia! Thanks so much for sharing! I only ever use ham hock in pea and ham soup! I think I’m going to have to give this process a go.
Clare, make sure you get hold of a pork hock rather than a ham hock – it’s the same cut, but the ham will have been cured, whereas you want to start with raw meat. :)
Indeed, there are so many issues raised in this post Celia. I do think, too, that not only for the welfare of the animal, it’s very likely for the welfare of us all in terms of health and soil/food security that we should individually try to steer away from intensively reared and produced food. I agree that we should treat meat with respect. Meat was a luxury commodity when I was growing up and my parents made the cheaper cuts go a long way – as well, we ate a fair amount of offal. Along with things like pease pudding, suet puddings and suet pastry and stuffings for meat – and soup was often a first course. When Peter and I were first married, in the early 70s, I cooked the way my parents did and one day, at the Butchers the Butcher said to me “By gee, your dog eats well”! Now that I work four days a week, I’ve got out of the ‘slow food’ habit – but I can see a time coming soon when I will need to go back to making our food dollar stretch as far as possible – and I’m looking forward to that. I’m going to make a start with pulled pork! Pork stock is wonderfully rich and gelatinous. My Pete would match your boys for eating meat if he could – I tell people he’s a ‘growing lad’:)
Jan, you always make me laugh SO much! “Your dog eats well..” hahahaha
We can only ever do what we can and you work such long hours that it’s hard to get ahead. I find the pulled pork is a great time saver though – if I cook a pork neck or hocks, I can freeze enough meat to pull out for several dinners during the week. The meat defrosts perfectly too, so when we’re really frantic, it goes between two bits of sourdough and a little cheese in the sandwich press and then gets served with chilli sauce! :)
Crackling is pretty irresistible for me, too! Ahh, Celia!!!
Julie
Gourmet Getaways
I had to hide it Julie, or they’d have devoured the lot! :)
This is a great post. I have been trying to use more of everything I buy too, but its easier said than done. This was a great example of really letting nothing go to waste, and the food looks delicious too. Thanks again!
Thanks for stopping by! So glad you liked the post!
We use everything we can-it’s my parents coming out in me. I actually really like the challenge of it all and seeing how far it can go! :D
Good for you! Maybe it’s the Chinese in both of us.. :D
Thank you so much Celia. Yesterday thanks to this post, i discovered a fab wholesale butcher, amazing prices and service, and tonight we enjoyed pulled pork with rice cooked with the stock and home made salsa on homemade flat bread (that I had stashed in the freezer). I would stash the rest of the pulled pork in batches in the freezer but my Mr won’t let me!
Hooray! I’m so glad to hear it was such a hit with Ryan Gosling too… :D
I stretch everything here as well :) I try and waste as little as possible when it comes to anything meat related… Love seeing your Romertopf… I just found one in an op shop and am dying to try it out!
We adore our Romertopfs! :)
A late comment Celia…I read this when you first posted and I am just getting back to it!
I love how much thought and detail you put into these really helpful, practical posts. All of this food and these meals are achievable with a little thought and prior planning and as you say…one meal slides into another. I love it x
Jane, thanks love, comments like yours make it worth writing these posts. I always wonder if I’m boring people! We had a dinner party for friends last night – eight adults, two teenagers – and we fed them ALL on two big pork hocks, crackling, rice cooked in stock and frijoles cooked in the fat. The entire main cost all of $20! And that was for free range pork! :)
You truly are an inspiration Celia and always amaze me with how many ideas you have to stretch a meal. After reading what you pay there for free range chickens I can really appreciate how sensible it is to stretch the meat over multiple meals (well, that plus feeding your guys). I always remember my mother doing her grocery shopping once a week without a list yet every single thing went into a meal that stretched to the next shopping day (and not a thing in the fridge throw out).
Having your own garden is also so satisfying – just knowing that you’ve grown it, having it fresh, and not altered in any way. Does Australia allow genetically modified crops? I know a number of countries in Europe at least have taken steps to force the labeling but here in the States it seems like a losing battle. Every time we try to get labeling so that we know what we’re buying, the food companies (Monsanto is HUGE) throw so much money at the politicians and with advertising that every attempt so far has failed. I think companies who don’t use genetically modified foods should try to beat them at their own game by labeling theirs as NOT modified. I just like to know what I’m eating.
Diane, I’m not sure what the status of GM crops are here, but I always try to buy the ones specifically labelled as GM free wherever possible. It’s a complicated issue though…
Hiya Celia – I’m sorry but this request has nothing to do with this post, but I couldn’t work out how to contact you otherwise.
I have been making your recipe for yoghurt since you posted the recipe, and I absolutely love it. My beloved niece is now vegan, so I am trying to work out howto make vegan yoghurt for her. Obviously I will use soy milk or other nut milk, but in your recipe the extra tablespoons of milk powder are the key to the yoghurt being rich and creamy. I just wondered if you have any thoughts about how to make soy milk yoghurt creamy?
Kindest Regards
Lorelle
Hi Lorelle, I asked Pete and he doesn’t think it will work, as the culture is lactobacillus, which converts the lactose in the milk to lactic acid. I think soy milk yoghurt might be made in a completely different way using a special vegan culture? And yes, the milk powder makes the yoghurt thicker – if you do leave it out and the yoghurt works, you could try straining it in a sieve to let the whey drain out to thicken it. Good luck with it! :)