The joint between the foot and the leg — almost entirely skin, tendon, cartilage and bone, with very little actual meat. That composition is the point: it is the cheapest source of gelatin in the shop, and a single hock will give a pot of beans or greens a body that no amount of stock concentrate replicates.
The hock sits at the bottom of either the front or hind leg, above the trotter and below the main muscle of the shoulder or ham. What's there is the tibia or radius surrounded by a thin layer of hard-worked muscle, wrapped in a heavy sheath of tendon and connective tissue, covered in thick skin. It is one of the highest ratios of collagen to muscle on any animal. Hind hocks are meatier than front. Sold three ways that behave completely differently: fresh (raw, pale), smoked (cured and smoked, dark pink, salty — the standard for beans and greens), and cured but unsmoked. A recipe calling for one and given another will come out either bland or overwhelmingly salty.
This is a collagen delivery system. Long, wet, low cooking hydrolyzes that connective tissue into gelatin, which dissolves into the surrounding liquid and gives it viscosity and mouthfeel — the reason a pot of greens with a hock in it coats the spoon and one without doesn't. The conversion needs hours between roughly 160 and 200°F, and there is no shortcut: the collagen content that makes it valuable is exactly what makes it slow. The skin is a second consideration. Left in liquid it goes soft and gelatinous, which is right for a braise; taken out and blasted with dry heat at the end it can be made to crackle, which is what German schweinshaxe does and why that dish has both textures at once.
The classic use, and the most efficient — the gelatin, salt and smoke all migrate into the pot, seasoning and thickening it simultaneously.
HowOne smoked hock per pot, in from the start, simmered two to three hours. Pull it out, strip the meat off, discard the bone and most of the skin, and return the meat. Taste before adding any salt — a smoked hock brings a lot.
Wet heat converts the collagen; dry heat afterwards turns the skin to crackling, giving the German-style result of falling meat under a hard shell.
HowBraise fresh hocks in beer with onion, caraway and bay at 300°F for two and a half hours. Lift out, dry the skin, and roast at 475°F for twenty to twenty-five minutes until it blisters. Reduce the braising liquid for sauce.
Collagen conversion is time-at-temperature and a pressure cooker raises the temperature, which cuts the hours down substantially.
HowForty-five minutes at high pressure with aromatics, natural release. Good for stock and for beans; less good if you want the skin intact for crisping, since it comes out very soft.
A hock in a stock pot is the cheapest way to make a stock that sets to a firm jelly, which is what separates a good stock from a thin one.
HowOne or two fresh hocks with the usual aromatics, four hours at a bare simmer. Strain and chill — it should set solid enough to hold a spoon upright.
The three versions of this cut are not interchangeable and the packaging rarely makes the difference obvious. A smoked hock has been cured, which means it can carry as much salt as a couple of teaspoons dissolved into your pot before you add anything. Season a pot of beans normally, add a smoked hock, cook it three hours while the salt migrates out, and the result is inedible — and unfixable, because you cannot remove salt from a braise. The rule is simple: add the hock, cook it, and only then taste and season. Going the other way, using a fresh hock in a recipe written for smoked leaves the dish tasting flat and watery, because the smoke and cure were doing most of the seasoning work.
Decide which you want before you go: smoked for beans, greens, split pea soup and anything southern; fresh for braising, roasting or stock where you want to control the seasoning. Hind hocks are meatier than front and worth asking for. They should be heavy for their size with thick skin intact. This is among the cheapest things in any butcher's case — often under two dollars a pound — and many shops will effectively give them away. Buy several and freeze them; they keep well and one improves almost any pot of beans. Avoid anything sold sliced into rounds unless you specifically want osso buco-style presentation, since the marrow and gelatin escape faster.
Doneness: Not a thermometer cut. Braise until the meat pulls from the bone with no resistance and the skin is completely soft — two and a half to three hours at 300°F, or forty-five minutes under pressure. If crisping the skin afterwards, 475°F for twenty minutes.
In practice, curing. Both words refer to the same joint, but ham hock almost always means smoked and cured, while pork hock or fresh hock means raw. Since the salt difference is enormous, check the label rather than trusting the name — and if it's pink and smells of smoke, treat it as heavily salted regardless of what it's called.
Not much, and that's not really the point. A hind hock might give you a few ounces of shredded meat. What you're buying is collagen, skin and bone, which turn into gelatin and body in the liquid. Judged as a piece of meat it's poor value; judged as a seasoning and thickening ingredient it's the best value in the shop.
For the smoke and salt, partly. For the body, no. Bacon brings fat and smoke but almost no collagen, so a pot of beans made with bacon tastes similar and has a thin, watery liquid where the hock version is glossy and coating. If you have no hock, a piece of pork skin or a split trotter added alongside bacon gets you closer than bacon alone.