Culinary School: Pig Butchering, Charcuterie and Italian Cuisine

This little piggy went to culinary school

Porchetta (Left); Curving a terrine (Right)

Amazing week at culinary school butchering an entire 125lbs pig and then roasting, braising, deep frying and making charcuterie from it. We had two great guest chefs this week: Taylor Boetticher from the fatted calf to break down that pig; and chef Liza Shaw for italian cuisine.

We started of the week by butchering a pig with Taylor. We broke down a 125lbs of a market hog raised over 6–8 months. Some of my butchering notes highlights:

• Butchering zen: start from big 25+ lbs primal cuts (leg, middle, shoulder, head) and work you way down to subprimal cuts (tenderloin, shortribs, etc). Cut with the seams and bones of the animal. Only use a bone saw for bones.
• A lot of the pig ends up being fat which we then used for charcuterie in a 3:1 meat:fat ratio for sausages.
• Remove nodes: if you see a small (<1cm), shiny and discolored piece of meat remove it.
• Separating Skin: To remove skin from fat & meat cut a small triangle flap at the corner cutting towards yourself. Hold down that flap and with an angled knife separate skin from fat.
• Leaf lard is fat found inside the pig in one continuous strip on each side and is primarily used for pastry. Once rendered it looks much clearer then lard found under pork skin.

Roasted porchetta

We roasted this delicious porchetta. It’s interesting how little prep work (<10m) actually went into making this slab of meat and how great it tastes.

Preparing porchetta: Start from a rectangular piece of pork belly with the skin still on. Score the skin with the back of a knife to create a diamond pattern. Apply traditional seasoning into each nook and cranny in visible layers: pound garlic (15 cloves), grated lemon, salt, ground pepper, ground toasted fennel seed and chopped rosemary. Using butchers twine tie the roast up facing down. Bake on 425–450°F for 10m, rotate for another 10m, lower temp to 225°F for 4 hours and rotate every hour. Slice with serrated knife.

Pork Terrine with sliced baguette

Today-I-learned: Terrine is charcuterie meat product “baked” as a loaf and served at cold/room-temp as slices.

How to make a terrine:

1. Ratio: Start from a 2.5:1 meat:fat mix. We used 1:4 liver + pork shoulder as the meat.
2. Marinade overnight in a spice mix of sweated shallots, pepper, bay leaf, allspice, mustard seed, salt, curing salt and ginger.
3. Add Panade: After marinading, add 1.5cup mix of 1:1:1 stock : cream : bread crumbs and 2tbsp of madeira.
4. Grind in meat grinder to fine consistency.
5. Add garnishes of diced duxelles mushrooms, bacon and chopped thyme, parsley & sage.
6. Pack in a traditional terrine dish with caul fat and sage & parsley leaves lining it.
7. Bake in a water bath on 325°f until it temps at 140°f.
8. Let rest until room temp. Unmold by placing in hot water bath until fat is loss, curve and serve.

chicharrones

We made chicharrones (also known as “Pork Rinds” and “Cracklin”). It’s just deep fried pork skin tossed in a spice mix.

Making chicharrones:

1. Remove fat from pork skins with a knife.
2. Boil skin in hot water for 1–1.5 hours until pliable.
3. Cool and then remove fat with a knife.
4. dehydrate on 200°f overnight until brown and brittle.
5. Remove fat with a spoon.
6. Deep fry at 375°f for 1m until puffy.
7. Toss in spice mix:
   Spicy mix: 20g chilli flakes, 20g fennel seed, 5g salt, 2–3 lemons zested.
   My savory mix: toasted ground cumin, dehydrated ground green garlic, salt.
   My sweet mix: 1:1 ratio of powdered sugar and vanilla sugar.

Cavatelli, Orecchiette and Pici pasta in Ragu pork sauce

We made three kinds of pasta in ragu sauce. We made one batch of pasta dough (2:1 cup ap flour:semolina, 500g water, 20g salt, knead for 10m) and hand shaped it as Cavatelli, Orecchiette and Pici.

The ragu sauce had pork cheeks, liver and trimmings browned in lard. In the same pot we caramelized italian mirepoix (french mirepoix + fennel) in 1:3–1:4 ratio of meat. Add red wine, hand crushed tomatoes and water. Reduce until meat is tender. Combine pasta and ragu by sautéing cooked pasta into sauce with pasta water.

We also made these Bitter Greens w/ Soffritto and Beans. soffritto is a sauce base (e.g. roux) that has diced aromatics simmering in fat.

Our sofforitto had diced garlic, anchovies, chili peppers simmering in olive oil until soft and finished off with lemon zest. The sofforito was combined with bite-sized bitter green stems and sliced bitter green and then left to rest. Finally we combined boiled lima beans and their bean water with the sofforito greens until the bean starches thickened the dish.

Read more about my experiences in culinary school by reading about last week’s classes:

Culinary School: Grilled Lamb, Lamb Braises and Lamb Meatballs