Regrettably, I’ve fallen off the wagon of cooking SBS recipes lately, but the photo of slow-braised pork hock from the Culinary World Cup was calling to me, in a way that only cured smoked meat can. This blog has also had the occasional Balkan moment, with the coverage of burek and sljivovica, so it was about time that I got down to cooking some food from the region.

My personal world cup tips based on cuisine have, to this point, yielded nothing but Spain. It turns out that I should have been following nations that are heavily infected with toxoplasmosis or this octopus, both of which are reliable indicators for World Cup victory. A love of food can only take you so far before you need to rely upon true weirdness.

As for the Serbian pork hock, it is almost impossible to go wrong with a recipe that involves simmering an underappreciated cut of pork for three hours. It is the type of dish you can actively forget about for an hour or so and still end up with a delicious meal rather than a black, carbonised mass welded firmly to the stove. A dish heartier than this would be difficult to find; the boiling process alone fills the whole kitchen with rich, smoke-redolent steam.

The recipe does overestimate the number of hocks per person. I budgeted one hock between two where the recipe suggests one per person. The hock that I procured was roughly the size of my forearm and could feed a handful of people.

What the recipe fails to mention is that after cooking down your hock and vegetables, and presenting a meal, you’re left with a vegetable-rich, gelatinous pork stock. It is far too intense to discard, and creates the perfect base for the laziest soup imaginable. If I was less lazy, it could form a base for pea and ham soup or if you were looking to stretch the idea of cross-regional cuisine, a pork-heavy base for ramen noodles.

Here's what I made with the pork stock. Feel free to add any vegetables from your fridge to the recipe.

Ingredients

Any leftover meat picked from the pork hock
Leftover stock
A quarter of a cabbage, sliced
A tin of cannellini beans, drained and washed
A tin of diced tomatoes
Water

Method

Reheat the stock and add the cabbage, beans and tinned tomatoes. You’ll probably need to water the soup down a little depending on the saltiness of your pork hock. Add more water until it is as salty as you like it.  Boil until the cabbage softens. Serve.