"Haxen" with dark ale gravy

"Haxen" are a (southern) german meat dish, consisting of a roasted piece of leg on a bone.

I actually wanted to publish the recipe here a few years ago, but somehow didn't get around to it. At that time there was this seitan jackfruit meat on an "Oktoberfest" burger that I created. But even in this way, they are great for a more elaborate Sunday meal.

Of course, they don't taste exactly like the animal original, but the consistency and taste definitely make them a great accompaniment to potatoes, dumplings, red cabbage and/or gravy.

Duration: approx. 2-2.5 hours

Difficulty: easy

Makes 3-4 Haxen

Ingredients:

Haxen

1 can of jackfruit (225g drained weight)

100g onion (weighed unpeeled)

10g garlic (weighed unpeeled)

15g oil

200g black beer/dark ale

15g soy sauce

2g liquid smoke

15g yeast extract

40g water

15g mustard

10g tomato paste

10g vegetable stock powder

150g gluten powder / seitan fix

10g yeast flakes/nooch

10g soy flour

4g onion powder

2g white pepper

4g sugar

7g mustard flour

1g nutmeg

2g ground caraway seeds

6-8 sheets of square rice paper

3-4 root parsley/parsnips

Marinade

50g black beer/dark ale

5g mustard

10g ketchup

5g oil

3g paprika

1g onion granules

1g garlic granules

7g salt

5g sugar

Gravy

100g onions (weighed unpeeled)

3 cloves of garlic

15g oil

1 parsley root/carrot (optional)

10g tomato paste

25g soy sauce

250g black beer

250g light vegetable stock

Preparation:

We start with the filling, of course. First, the jackfruit is poured off through a sieve, lightly squeezed out and rinsed off with a little water.

The onion and garlic are finely chopped and fried in a little oil. As soon as these have got a little color, jackfruit is added and seared briefly.

While everything is simmering, you can mix 200g of black beer with soy sauce, mustard, water, yeast extract, liquid smoke, tomato paste and vegetable stock powder. In another bowl, mix the gluten powder with the yeast flakes, soy flour, onion powder, pepper, sugar, mustard flour, nutmeg and caraway seeds. The marinade can now also be mixed together.

The jackfruit is now extinguished with the beer mixture and allowed to simmer for 10 minutes. Then the mixture is allowed to cool and the jackfruit pieces can be torn up with two forks.

Since the jackfruit really shouldn't be hot when it is mixed with the gluten mixture, there is now enough time to prepare the sauce. To do this, the onion is cut and fried in a little oil. I bought a little more parsley root, which later served as a "bone", so I was able to cut one more and add 3 crushed garlic cloves to the onions. You can also take a carrot or just leave it out if you prefer to make the knuckles without the "bones". When the roots and the garlic have gotten some color, add the tomato paste, sear them spicy and then deglaze with soy sauce. A little flour is stirred in, stirring constantly so that nothing starts to stick and then the black beer and the vegetable stock are added. Stir everything thoroughly and then let the sauce simmer for 45 minutes.

The jackfruit mass should now be cool enough and it can be kneaded with the gluten mix. You can now preheat the oven to 180°C. Then divide the mixture into 3 (or 4) servings. Then 2 pieces of rice paper per leg are placed in water one after the other until they are really nice and flexible. Then lay them on top of each other so that they overlap about halfway. Then the jackfruit seitan mixture is spread over it and wrapped and rolled up as shown in the pictures. Then the parsley roots or parsnips come from one side into the seitan rolls and then you can coat them with about half of the marinade. The "rind" becomes very thick due to the whole layers of rice paper, I like that quite a lot, but if you can already tell that you won't like it, you can of course only wrap it once in the rice paper.

Now the knuckles are baked for 30 minutes. After the 30 minutes you can brush them with the remaining marinade and then bake for another 40 minutes.

When the sauce has boiled down enough, you can use a sieve to remove the onions and the like. You can of course also puree it, the sauce will then just not be as nice and dark but a bit creamier. Taste it with a little fresh pepper and, depending on your taste, with a little salt and it is ready. You can now heat all other side dishes such as red cabbage, potatoes or dumplings.

The knuckles can then be served with the other side dishes as soon as they come out of the oven.

If that goes a little too far with the root vegetables as "bones", you can of course omit the whole thing and simply have delicious seitan in a crispy rice paper skin. If you want them even crispier, you could also deep fry the already baked Haxen.

Guten Appetit!

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