Mariner's Smoked Pork Meat Stock

I have frequent need of pork stock in my cooking, and it's not often available on the store shelves. Sometimes, as an afterthought to crock-cooking a large piece of pork, I make my own, by simply covering any bones left after deboning the pork with water, and cooking all of the meat off. This can yield significant amounts of broth, but is somewhat haphazard in terms of the flavor and amount.

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A more consistent broth can be made using some of the freeze-dried commerial meat stock products. I have used the Goya® brand of Jamon (smoked ham hock) product for years, with most satisfactory results.

Achieving a more consistent results for home-made pork stock requires a more deliberate approach. The Internet abounds with websites proclaiming their possession of the "best" recipé for the stock, but aside from (usually) minor differences in seasoning, they are almost all the same. For my part, I want a relatively simple, smoked pork stock, that I can use to make more complicated things - like Mariner's Black Bean Soup - to which I add my own choice of seasonings. Furthermore, it would be nice if the product can be preserved in several different ways. The following recipé provides such a product, and the product is amenable to freezing or canning.

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Here's how to make it:

Suggested Equipment:

• Sauce pan or stock pot, 3 quart minimum, two each
  
• Sieve or strainer
  
• Miscellaneous kitchen tools.
  
• Canning equipment (optional)
  
  • Canning jars with lids and rings
    
  • Pressure canner large enough to hold several jars
    
  • Canning tools - jar lifter, headspace gauge, canning funnel
    
  • Ladle
    

Ingredients:

1. Or pretty much any kind of smoked pork. It's the smoky pork flavor, not the meat that you're after.
   
2. Typical weight for a ham hock is 1½ to 2 lb, so you may have to trim the meat or adjust the recipé.
   
3. Meat stocks are typically pretty salty, but this is for preservation purposes, not flavor enhancement.
   
4. This is the minimum amounts needed for 1 lb of bone-in smoked meat-see the directions for clarification. If you are using a different amount of meat, you will need to adjust the amount of salt and water accordingly.
   

Item		Amount
Pork	Ham hock, smoked1	1	lb2
Salt	Canning	1	tsp3,4
Water		1	qt4

Directions:

1. Carefully wash the meat and place it in a 3 quart or larger pan or stock pot - much larger if you make more than a quart at a time!

2. Add the water and bring it to a boil. Reduce heat to a strong simmer and continue cooking until the meat falls off the bone, or 2 full hours, whichever is longer. Supplement with boiling water as needed to maintain the 1 quart volume of broth; or alternatively start cooking with additional water as needed, up to 2 quarts, and continue simmering until the volume of broth is reduced to one quart. The latter method will require less attention, but may produce an inferior broth.

3. While the broth is still hot strain it into another, heat- and refrigerator-safe container, and either discard the meat or refrigerate it for use in another recipé.

4. Chill the broth at least overnight in the refrigerator.

5. After chilling, remove any solidified fat from the broth. Skim off any remaining oil or fat, if it bothers you.

Storage:

If you plan to freeze the stock, then you need only package the chilled stock in your choice of sizes of freezer-safe containers, put them in your freezer. I'm told that frozen pork stock is safe for about 6 months.

If you make a lot of stock, and want to free up your freezer space, and don't mind canning, then you need to return the broth to the original pan, and bring it to a low boil; supplementing with additional boiling water to maintain volume, as needed. The broth must be maintained at boiling temperature until all of the stock has been loaded into canning jars, and the last of the jars are loaded into the pressure canner. Process the hot broth in pressure canner, using your choice of jar sizes, according to the tables shown in the NCHFP website for beef stock.

Canning meat stock is a complicated and labor-intensive process, but it isn't something one does every day; and with appropriate planning one can, in one cycle of preparation and canning, prepare and store enough meat stock to meet all their needs for an entire year.