ReLocavore: Redefining "local"

Back to Wisconsin, my cheesehead friends


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Pig Tails, Part 8: Tonkatsu

Jan 13, 2018 Correction. I incorrectly translated tonkatsu as pork fried. According to Kenji Lopez-Alt, Katsu is a phonetic translation of the English word cutlet.

“The word “katsu” is gairaigo, the Japanese term for words borrowed from other languages. The simplest phonetic translation of “cutlet” to Japanese vocalizations is katsuretsu, which in turn is shortened to katsu. Add ton—the Sino-Japanese word for “pork”—to the front of that and you’ve got tonkatsu, or breaded fried pork cutlets… Got it? Good. Let’s move on to more fun stuff.” (HT)

For Christmas Day dinner, I defrosted the smaller of the loin roasts (3.6 lbs), deboned it, cut it into thin loin slices and deep fried up some tonkatsu. Tonkatsu is Japanese pork cutlet: Ton = Pork, Katsu = cutletfried. It’s Japanese because it is breaded with panko bread crumbs and traditionally served with special Tonkatsu sauce. Clearly though, this is a modern Japanese dish.

Tonkatsu has been a special dish in my family because it is a giant pain to deep fry food, so we only made it on special occasions like Christmas or birthdays. I remember mom and dad filling the wok with hot oil and setting this special grate on the side of the wok to let the pork cutlets drip oil back into the wok, like pictured below. When I make tonkatsu, I use a deep cast iron pot because I don’t own a wok. The cast iron pot weighs a ton, which means it has a lot of thermal mass, so keeps the oil at a more stable temperature when frying. I do a lot less fussing with the temperature. Set the heat, wait, and done.

If you want to make Tonkatsu, don’t. It’s a gigantic pain in the ass and you end up with fried pork cutlets. There are faster and easier ways to make good pork. But this is nostalgia. That is powerful.


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Pig Tails, Part 6: Carnitas

If I eat at an America-Mexican restaurant, I don’t order fajitas, I order carnitas. Carnitas is braised then charred pork. Recipes add flavorings like cumin or citrus to the mix. I couldn’t imagine a better way to cook a pork shoulder.

The pork shoulder is a well-marbled piece of meat with an awkward bone going through the whole piece. Pork shoulders make for a good roast because you can’t slice it up pretty. Pork shoulder has lots of connective tissues that break down into mouth-coating gelatin after low, slow cooking. All of this combines to make beautiful carnitas.

Recipes

We ate the carnitas with these lovely corn and wheat tortillas from the COOP, avocados and salsa. Wonderful!


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Pig Tails Part 5: Arista

Arista is a Tuscan style pork roast with pepper, rosemary, garlic and olive oil. My father taught me how to cook this roast.

Recipes

I started cooking the pig with the bone-in loin roast. This is a tender and well-marbled cut with plenty of connective tissue and tasty bones for gnawing (See pictures below). Typically this roast is cut into pork chops, but a better way of cooking it is to roast it.

I make a paste of rosemary, black pepper, garlic, salt and olive oil, then slice into the meat diagonally across the grain at 1/2″ cuts. I stuff the cuts with the paste and tie it all up. 400F until 150F. Rest for 30 minutes. Slice. Gnaw bones.


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Pig Tails, Part 4: The Roasts

I have 7 beautiful pork roasts, all 3 to 6 pounds, offers up a world of opportunities. However, I know myself, and I have to be smart today because I will inevitably be stupid later. I want to plan out the best way to cook each cut, and map that onto my most favorite recipes, to come up with a roadmap for how to eat this beautiful pig and give myself something to look forward to in the wintery months ahead.

The Cooks Illustrated Meat Book provided ample information on what to do with the roast, once I had mapped the Butcher’s labels onto pig anatomy. From this, I know that the loin is the tenderest meat that can be cooked rapidly on high heat, grilled, etc, but the shoulder will need more time and slower, lower cooking temperatures.

I also have a long, well-honed list of pork recipes that I love to cook and eat.

  • Char Siu is a Chinese-style pork roast with warm spices (star anise, cinnamon, clove) and soy. If I do it right, I can get that lovely red line around the outer edge of the meat. I love to make it, slice it very thin and freeze for recipes later. I can use slices of char siu in ramen noodles, made into a pâté with hoisin sauce to stuff pork buns, and add a little bit of meatyness to a stir fry.
  • Tonkatsu, or Japanese-style breaded pork cutlets. A Faerber family tradition, for some reason. The cutlets get deep fried, so Tonkatsu makes a giant mess of things in the kitchen and so only gets made on holidays. And, Panko are far superior bread crumbs. I’ll leave that one out there to debate with Nick Scheeler.
  • Arista – Tuscan style pork roast with ample black pepper, rosemary, garlic and olive oil rubbed into deep slashes in the meat.
  • Pulled pork, braised American style for BBQ sandwiches, or braised and grilled Mexican style for Carnitas. This is ideal with the pork butt roasts from the upper part of the pork shoulder.

Now to map on tasty dishes to roasts.


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Pig Tails, Part 3: The Baconing

The best part of getting a whole pig is getting all of the bacon. Most store-bought packages are the center of the belly with a mix of fat and meat. However, when you get the whole belly smoked, cured and sliced, some parts have more meat and less fat, and others are mainly fat with a little meat.

Both are wonderful. I have over 7 pounds. Of. Bacon. All from the same pig. If I had wanted, I could thaw each package and lovingly line it all back up into the primal belly.

On the first night having the pig at home, I had to cook some of the bacon. To stare into the eyes (belly?) of the beast and know my adversary, my friend, this porcine lover that I had brought to my chest freezer. (The pork barely fit. I had to say a prayer to the chest freezer fairy and put a weight on the lid to keep it all inside.)

The bacon is wonderful. Well cured and not over-smoked. The smokehouse did excellent work.


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Pig Tales, Part 2: Cutting up a pig

Once picked up my pig, I had to figure out what I got in my delivery, and what to do cook with it. For pork and other types of meats, there seems to be no consistency in what different cuts are called. I tracked down a basic map from the Cooks Illustrated Meat Book and tried to annotate, as best as I could, the locations of my roasts. This map can help me determine the best way to prepare the roasts.

The shoulder is the area with lots of connective tissue and should be slow cooked, braised, barbecued or stewed.

The loin is the tastiest bits of pork and can be roasted, but also sliced thin or made into chops.

The belly is bacon, plain and simple. Don’t mess around with perfection.

And the leg gets smoked and becomes a ham. Or maybe prosciutto. Next time.


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Pig tales, Part 1. Inventory

I got half a pig!

I found out on the Upper Valley Mailing list that there was a half of a hog available for sale. YES! I drove up to Bradford, VT to pick up my slaughtered, processed and frozen pork, with dreams of tasty tasty things. From the hog farmer, I found out some unfortunate soul had to back out of their pork order. Their loss.

I had to fill out a complex sheet for the butcher to process my pig. I do NOT want a bunch of ground pork and pork chops. We just don’t eat them. I want my pork in large roasts, which allow me to make roast pork, or, if I so choose, cut down the roast into smaller pieces. When I put food by, I want it to be as versatile as possible.

(That is not my pig, but is one of the porcine brethren that was raised with my pig.)

Here is what I got:

Bacon and Bacon Ends

Ground pork

2 bone-in rib end roasts

Shoulder roast

2 butt roasts

2 loin roasts

A ham

Spare ribs.


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Science gizmos to the rescue! 


Sam and I made salsa tonight. 12 pints from 10 lbs tomatoes, 2 lbs tomatillos, 1 lb peppers, 1lb onions and spices.

Don’t know if you know this, but I got a digital pH meter for my birthday last year. Why would anyone want a digital pH meter? Here’s why…

Because they’re awesome when canning salsa. So useful. 

Some background… Nasty microbes like botulism can’t survive at high temperatures or in acidic foods. Canning kills off the microbes with heat and seals the jar so no more microbes can come in. The acid in the food keeps any remaining microbes from breeding. 

There’s two kinds of canning, waterbath canning which uses 220°F water to kill off any microbes in the jars and to seal the contents. The second method is pressure canning whereby I use pressure to raise the boiling point and kill off any super-nasty microbes. You choose the canning method based on two factors. First, if the product contains meat or seafood, you have to pressure can because meat isn’t acidic and nasty microbes thrive in meat. Second, if the pH of the food is above 4.6 (less acidic) you have to pressure can because there isn’t enough acidity to keep the nasty microbes in check. 

There are a number of foods that have pH levels at or around 4.6, most notably tomatoes. Ripe tomatoes have a higher pH, are less acidic. With tomato products, it’s always been a guessing game as to whether I can water bath or pressure can. 

Salsa does terribly in pressure canning because the extra high temps turn the tomatoes into mush. In previous years, when I have made salsa, I have always needed to add 2 cups of lemon juice to ensure that the pH of the salsa is low enough to water bath can. 

Not any more. 
This year, I was able to use the digital pH meter and record the baseline acidity of the salsa- 4.7, just above the threshold for waterbath canning. But instead of adding two whole cups of lemon juice to ensure the pH dropped considerably, I instead was able to add lemon juice a little bit at a time and recheck the pH. The final pH of the salsa was 4.38, well with in the safe zone for waterbath canning. 

Science! And tasty salsa.