Pork with Potato Lumplings (by G)

Dinner tonight was a bit of a debacle. I had made sauerkraut some weeks ago and I decided today was the time to use it - with pork knuckles and potato dumplings. When I checked the sauerkraut I was disappointed to discover that it had some mould growing on it (some of the cabbage had floated above the pickling liquid).

 

Undaunted I went to the butcher to get the pork hocks and discovered they had sold out. At this point I should have just come up with a different plan, but the monomania set in and I decided to go ahead with a pork loin roast.  I seasoned the loin with salt and pepper and oiled and salted the skin then roasted it for hours on a bed of once fresh but now dry rosemary. I should have amended my cooking times because the loin meat is not as fatty as the knuckle - subsequently it came out dry. The crackle was not the bubbly kind but the thin sticky kind, which was still pretty satisfying.

 

The potato dumplings were a bit of a failure. I mixed boiled potatoes, eggs, salt ad flour to the exact proportions listed in the recipe. I thought it was not doughy enough but decided to go with the recipe rather than trust my instincts (they have been a bit off lately).  When I boiled the dumplings in water they started to disintegrate so I pulled the misshaped lumps out and heated them without water in a pan. They were pretty stodgy and quite cold when served.

 

In place of the sauerkraut I salted some purple cabbage for a few hours then braised it in a mix of beef stock, brown sugar and red wine vinegar with a little garlic for flavour. I was not really in the mood for the regular sweet and sour cabbage and this turned out to be much more to my taste.

 

I did not shine with this roast - I even managed to fuck up the packet gravy. Luckily even bad pork is good and Biggs and I managed to gag it all down.