In Hungary pork jelly or kocsonya is known as a main dish, usually cooked during the carnival season. As a Hungarian journalist said, kocsonya is “the etheral essence of pork”. It’s not far from the truth since kocsonya is a rich, solid broth containing soft pork meat. We use skinned, gristly and bony parts that are simmered for several hours in order to have enough dissolved collagen in the broth, which turns the broth into jelly at low temperature.
Pork jelly can be made from pork feet, shank, ear, tail, pork skin, but it can also contain smoked meat, vegetables like carrot and parsley root, or hard boiled eggs. The bigger stores in Hungary provide so called pork jelly packs that include all the necessary pork parts that are suitable for kocsonya or you can even ask your bucther to prepare a similar pack.
We use only a few spices to season pork jelly: black pepper and allspice corns, salt and garlic. Many, many, many garlic cloves. Besides the ingredients the only thing you need to make the perfect kocsonya is patience. It takes 3-4 hours to simmer the meat, then broth needs several hours to set. But believe me, it’s worth. We eat with soft white bread, sprinkling ground paprika or squeezing lemon juice over its top.
Ingredients:
- 6 pork hind feet (~3 kg / ~6 2/3 lbs)
- 2 pork ears, cut into strips
- 400 g (~14 oz) pork skin, cut into strips
- 6 l (~25 cups) water
- 2 heads of garlic
- 4 tsp. salt
- 20 black peppercorns
- 15 allspice corns
Place the cut and cleaned hind feet and the ear strips into a large cooking pot, pour cold water over them. Bring it to a boil, skim off the foam, add salt, 6 peeled garlic cloves, pepper and allspice corns, and cook slowly over low heat. After 1 hour, add skin strips and simmer for about 2 hours or until meat easily comes off the bone.
Meanwhile peel the remaining garlic cloves and crush with a garlic press. When the meat is tender, turn off the heat, with a strainer separate meat from the soup, remove the bones (I prefer to leave in some because feet look better with bones). Add crushed garlic to the stock and let it cool in a cold place until you can remove fat from the top (don’t let the stock set, it must be liquid).
Divide meat in bowls (now you can add hard boiled eggs, pickled cucumber or what you want), then ladle stock to cover. Let kocsonya set in a cold place.
Serve with bread, you can squeeze lemon juice or sprinkle ground paprika over the top.
Ingredients and material to make Kocsonya
Begin early in the morning, it could take up to 4 or 5 hours.
Refrigerator overnight to jell (38-40 F.)
One large pot to hold 3 Pork Hocks, 3 pigs feet cut length wise and one package of Ox Tails.
Soup spoon of finely ground black pepper corns.
One and ½ Garlic bulbs cleaned and left whole.
Salt, a sprinkle.
4 Bay leafs.
3 or 4 Beef Buillian cubes.
One serrated knife used to remove the meat and fat from Ox Tails and Pigs feet.
One fine screen for removing froth/foam.
A grinder using ¼ inch plate to grind the meat.
Burn off any hairs from the Pork Hocks.
Place all of the meat into the pot of warm water to soak and remove blood until its clear.
Use a low flame and cover the pot so there is room for vapor to escape.
Remove the froth or foam from the liquid using the screen. Do not remove any oil.
Use a fork into a Pork Hock to see if it is tender.
Then remove all the meat into a bowl.
Pour the soup into a hand held strainer, any garlic remove and put into the soup. The strainer removes only the froth not the fat.
Use the serrated knife to cut the meat and fat from the Ox Tails.
Grind the meat.
Mix the ground meat into the plastic containers and soup. Do not cover the containers.
Put the containers into the refrigerator. In the morning remove the top layer of fat using a spoon and wiping the fat off on a newspaper.
A little salt or vinegar