Category Archives: Pork

Bacon, Canadian, Charcuterie, Meat, Pork

Peameal Bacon

Leave a comment

Slices of homemade peameal baconIt’s always confused me that Americans call back bacon “Canadian bacon,” when it’s much more associated with Britain than Canada.  To my knowledge the only uniquely Canadian form of bacon is peameal bacon: cured pork loin rolled in ground split peas, which keeps the surface of the meat dry and inhibits microbial growth.  Sometime over the past century cornmeal has taken the place of peameal, but the name hasn’t changed.

This week I made two forms of peameal bacon: the contemporary favourite – lean, centre-cut pork loin, fat trimmed down, brined and rolled in cornmeal – and a rustic recontruction, inspired by the fantastic book The Art of Living According to Joe Beef.   I left an inch or two … Continue reading.

Charcuterie, Meat, Pork

Smoked Pork Loin – Kassler Rippchen

Leave a comment

The cured loin, smoking on the barbecueThis is hands down my favourite preparation of pork loin: brine-cured, smoked, and sliced into thick ham chops.

While the eye of loin is a very lean, mild-tasting muscle, it is surrounded by large slabs of fat: fatback on top, and the streaky side meat that becomes bacon.  Grilling or pan-frying a large pork chop with all this fat usually results in either overcooked meat or under-rendered fat.  By slowly bringing this roast up to temperature over several hours in a smoker, we render all that fat without overcooking the meat.  The final dish is somewhere between bacon and ham.

In Germany this preparation goes by the name Kassler Rippchen, which literally means “little ribs from Kassel”.

Details.  Use … Continue reading.

Charcuterie, Meat, Pork, Seasonal

A Fall Dinner, in August

2 Comments

I had to doublecheck my calendar: it’s still August, isn’t it?

This past Saturday I stood on my deck, wearing a sweater, tending a barbecue that was puffing applewood smoke into the yard.  Within the ‘cue was a cured pork loin.  Within the house, on the kitchen counter, was a head of cabbage.  Beside it, a jug of cider, weakly alcoholic, tart, sweet, faintly effervescent.

I have high hopes that there will be a few more weeks of heat, and a few more summer storms, but the last few days at my house have felt like fall.

 

A Fall Dinner, in August

A jug of the year's first ciderPart One: Windfall Hard Cider (Lisa’s Special No. 8)

The cider was the inspiration, the centre of … Continue reading.

Meat, Pork

Crackling

1 Comment

A sheet of puffy, happy pork cracklingCrackling is pig skin, cooked so that it’s crisp.  Since skin contains, and is often adjacent to, a good deal of fat, it benefits from a long, slow, rendering process, followed by a quick, high-heat crisping process.

You can form perfectly good crackling while cooking a skin-on pork roast, so long as the meat beneath the skin is a cut that also benefits from a long, slow cook.  Pork head, shoulder, and hock come to mind.  After the slow cook, raise the oven temperature to 425°F and bake until the skin becomes brittle, almost glass-like.

You can also cut the skin from the meat, then render and crisp it on its own.  This yields a product more like commercial pork … Continue reading.

Meat, Pork

Rendering Lard and Making Grammeln

8 Comments

Slabs of lard rendered from raw pork fatI’ve rendered animal fat many times, but I recently learned that I was doing it wrong.  Or rather, not in the most effective manner.

Rendering is the process of turning raw, fatty tissue from animals into pure fat.  We render pieces of raw pork fat to get lard, and raw beef fat to get tallow.  I used to quickly cut up, say, pork leaf lard, or beef suet, or duck breasts, then throw them in a pot over low heat and leave them for several hours.  This works, but I was always surprised by the low yield.

My exploration of an improved rendering method began last summer, in Austria, while eating at a Heuriger.  I was served light rye … Continue reading.

Austrian, Charcuterie, Meat, Pork

Alternative Pork Primals: Belly-Loin Combo

3 Comments

I first learned the pork primals in culinary school, and for years I considered that information dogmatic. Then in an Austrian grocery store I saw this:

Carinthian Farmer's Bacon in a grocery store in Austria

 

It’s called Carinthian farmer bacon (Kaerntner Bauernspeck).  Carinthia is a province in southern Austria, known for its rustic food.  It took me a few moments to realize where exactly this cut would have come from on a pig.  It is in fact a pork loin, with the side or belly still attached, cured as one large piece, cold-smoked, and sold in thick slabs.

Novel cuts like this are just as easy to butcher as the classics.  Following is a quick tutorial, with photos, to prove the point.

Here is a side … Continue reading.

Meat, Pork

Pork Cutting: Head

1 Comment

So.  This is the pig’s head.  It is not a true primal cut, but deserves some special attention. I’ve written about a few preparations that involve cooking the head whole, either simmered to become headcheese, or roasted for its own simple enjoyment.  This post will discuss cutting the raw head into its various constituents, namely the jowl and ear.

Pork head

By far the largest piece of meat and fat on the head is the jowl.  It is a gorgeous cut, very similar to bacon, though a bit fattier.  I remove the jowl by following the jaw bone with my knife.

Cutting along the jaw bone to remove the jowlThe head with removed jowl

The meaty circle in the centre is the cheek muscle.

The cheek muscle

The main difficulty in dealing with the jowl is the … Continue reading.

Meat, Pork

Pork Cutting: Shoulder Primal

1 Comment

This is the best primal, without question.  It is the source of the best pulled pork, the best roast pork, the best sausages, the best confit, the best…  you get the idea.

Below is a pork shoulder, as it looks straight from the side.  You can see the neck bones on the left, followed by the first few thoracic vertebrae and ribs.  At the bottom is the front hock.

The pork shoulder primal

The neck, back, and rib bones separate surprisingly easily from the meaty shoulder.  I start by cutting behind the feather bones, then follow the chine and ribs…

Cutting behind the backbone on the shoulder

…which all come off it one piece, like so:

The neck bones and riblets, removed from the pork shoulder

Next I remove the hock.  As with the hind hock, I prefer to separate at … Continue reading.

Meat, Pork

Pork Cutting: Loin Primal

1 Comment

You know what’s messed up?  Centre-cut pork loin is the most popular cut of pork.  At the grocery store it sells better than tenderloin (which is more tender) and way better than shoulder (which is more flavourful, juicy, and versatile).  People are crazy for lean meat that comes in uniform, round shapes.

The loin primal is usually cut into chops, notably the centre-cut loin chops.  I like a good chop as much as the next guy, but this particular loin is going to become back bacon.  We will therefore remove all the bones, the fatback, and skin so that we have what is called the eye of loin.

Here’s the loin.  On the bottom left you can see the back … Continue reading.

Meat, Pork

Pork Cutting: Belly Primal

2 Comments

This is what the belly primal looks like right off the hog.  On the top left side you can see the ribs.  These are called “side ribs,” as opposed to “back ribs,” which are on the loin primal.  In fact, this entire primal is sometimes called “side pork.”

On the bottom left is the breastbone, or sternum.The pork belly primal

The ribs are covered in a membrane that doesn’t break down very well, even after extensive cooking.  When I buy side ribs from the grocery store, the first thing I do is remove that membrane.  I think it’s easiest removed while the ribs are still attached to the belly, so we’ll do it now.

Each rib has a vein running between the membrane … Continue reading.