Ham Hocks

I've picked quite a few black-eyed peas lately (technically, I've had Mississippi purple-hulls, but they are both just different varieties of the same plant). Anyway, the best way to eat any of the "southern" pea varieties is boiled, with a smoked pork product. Accordingly, I picked up some ham hocks to go with my peas.

Ham hocks are the portion of the leg below the ham (or shoulder) that is to narrow and bony to be much good by itself. They are usually smoked and used to flavor soup. Here is a photo of three hocks sitting on the foam tray from the store:


The hocks are all more or less the size of my fist. They have been lightly salted and cured like ham, then smoked. There are a couple of tablespoons of meat on each one, along with a bit of fat for flavor. This is a very simple recipe: a couple of pounds of peas, a couple or three ham hocks, enough water to cover. Boil until the peas are tender--about 20 minutes for fresh peas, or an hour for dried peas.

This is what my peas looked like while I cooked them:


Mmm.....peas.

Here's Jasper (remember Jasper?) with his hocks marked out.

Mystery Meat

The other day I had a craving for some real Mexican food, so we went to a little taqueria in town for burritos. I ordered my favorite, lengua. "Lengua" is Spanish for "tongue." I love tongue burritos--the tongue is rich and savory, and so tender it just melts in your mouth. Tongue burritos are the best.

When we got there, I saw a sign that read "Posole y Menudo--Sabado y Domingo." That translates to "Posole and Menudo--Saturday and Sunday." Since it was a gray and rainy (though not chilly) day, I ordered a bowl of posole. The waitress came back in a couple of minutes, and told me that they were out of posole, but that they still had menudo. I told her that menudo would be fine.

In case you don't know, this menudo isn't the boy band from Puerto Rico--it's stew made from tripe. It's alleged to be the best hangover cure in the world, although I can't testify to that use. It is good, though, so I asked for a bowl of that instead.

When it came out, there was (in addition to the delicious tripe), a bony chunk of mystery meat floating in the stew. It looked like this:


As I poked around in the stew, I noticed that the mystery meat had skin on it. Then I noticed the part where the hoof had been. Then I realized that there was a pig foot floating in my stew. Yum. Here it is, in all its rich, footy goodness:

Going too far

This whole hog bit is like a dumb joke at a party--everybody plays along, everybody adds just a little bit to it. Then That Guy goes and does it--he goes too far. That's where I am right now.
Look closely at the picture of Jasper I posted on Monday. Notice what I haven't eaten: the back half of the hog, and the insides. I've eaten most of the parts of the pig that are served fresh and are easy to find. The project is kind of stalled right now, because I'm not quite ready to take the next steps, although I'm thinking about it.

I'm thinking about finding a Meat Guy--a guy who can hook me up with feet and hearts and livers and heads and the like. I've got a few leads, but I need to start making some calls.

I'm thinking about making ham and bacon, too. Not buying packaged stuff at the store and heating it, but curing and cold-smoking meats. I've got some fresh ham in the freezer, and I'm already thinking about what to do next. I've discovered that Morton Salt sells pre-mixed meat cures that include nitrates and nitrites. I'm starting to price cold-smokers, and contemplating plans for building one. (Note: the last time I tried to build a meat-smoking device, it turned out poorly. So poorly, in fact, that L wouldn't let me watch Alton Brown for about a year afterwards.)

I'm about to go too far.

Ribs and Mystery Meat

Moving right down the hog, I cooked up a couple of racks of ribs this weekend. I just dry-rubbed them (with a commercial product--I don't have a secret rib rub recipe), then put them in the smoker for about five hours. They turned out wonderfully--BBQ is, at its core, a simple process. Combine a tough cut of meat, low heat, and smoke. Wait a long time. Eat.

Here's how the ribs went into the smoker:


Here's your host playing with fire:


And here's Jasper, with ribs marked off:


I didn't get a photo of the final product, because the camera batteries died and I was hungry. You've all seen ribs, though--they were black from the smoke, and shiny from the grease and sauce--a vision of smoky goodness.

Also, I cooked up some salt pork. I sometimes use it for cooking greens instead of jowls. It's quite salty, and you can see that it's clearly pork. Beyond that, I'm at a loss as to just where this little square of meat comes from. It cooked up well, and made the collards taste good, and that's all that matters. I didn't mark it on Jasper because it's kind of a mystery.

Pork Chops

We had pork chops tonight for dinner. I forgot to take pictures, so you will have to take my word for it. I got a recipe from "New Best Recipe," a compendium of recipes from Cook's Illustrated. (Have I mentioned that Cook's Illustrated is the best food magazine ever, and that "New Best Recipe" may well be the best cookbook ever?)

Anyway, I cooked rib chops tonight. They are cut from the big roll of muscle on either side of the spine just above the rib cage. For some reason, they are often cut super-thin, and are easy to over-cook and dry out. To keep the chops from drying out too much, CI recommends low heat--they actually started the chops in a cold pan. To develop some nice brown color and rich flavors, they called for sprinkling a little sugar on one side of each chop--this would become the "presentation" side. The sprinkled side did develop some nice browning, and looked very tasty. The other side stayed pasty white. This was a quick, easy recipe--just sprinkle some sugar, cook for six to nine minutes, flip, and cook for a couple more minutes. The chops cooked through, the sugared side looked pretty, and they tasted fine. The recipe title was "quick week-night pork chops," and they lived up to their billing.

Here's Jasper with this cut marked:
I bought a ham this weekend--a fresh ham. That means that I'll be trying to cure ten pounds of meat pretty soon. Stay tuned for rich salty goodness! Maybe I'll make wonderful ham! Maybe I'll make myself sick! We'll just have to wait and see.....

Boston Butt

I have slowed down a little on the whole-pig eating lately, mainly because I've been too busy with other stuff to do anything interesting in the kitchen. I finally got back to the program on Sunday with a Boston Butt. I've blogged about cooking a pork butt before, when I made posole. That was before I started my mission, so I decided to cook another one.

I'm not sure why this cut is called "Boston butt," because it doesn't come from that end of the hog. It's the name for the top section of the hog's shoulder, just above the picnic shoulder. (Folks who make BBQ in mass quantities often use the whole pork shoulder, which is a 12 to 15 pound hunk of meat consisting of both the picnic and butt sections.) Since the shoulder is a support muscle, it gets worked hard. Hard work means lots of connective tissue, which means tough meat. These tough cuts benefit greatly from long cooking times at low temperatures that eventually break down the connective tissue and tenderize the meat. The classic methods are smoking (like I did with the picnic shoulder), stewing (as with the posole), and braising. I decided to braise this roast, since I haven't blogged about anything like that.

My recipe came from Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, although I don't think anyone would ever guess this recipe was Italian when they saw the ingredients or the result. (I was reminded of this recipe a few months ago when Biggles at Meathenge used a similar recipe for pork chops). It is called "pork roast cooked in the classic Bolognese style."

This is one of those simple recipes that doesn't rely on fancy techniques or a variety of ingredients, yet produces almost magical results. There are four ingredients, and only a handful steps. All it takes is four hours of sporadic attention. The ingredients are:

Our star--a boston butt.


Whole milk--two cups or more.


And a little fat to keep things from sticking. In keeping with the theme (sampling a every part of a pig), I used lard, with a little butter for flavoring. I didn't get a good picture of the lard, since it's just some white stuff in a bucket, but it is real lard.

Here are the steps.

1. In a big dutch oven or stew pot, heat up three tablespoons of fat over medium-high heat. Drop in the roast and brown all sides. This step will help you develop a rich, full, meaty flavor in the final dish. Here's my browned butt:


2. Pour in two cups of milk, and reduce heat to a very low simmer. Partially cover, and go do something else for half an hour. This is what the milk looked like after I put it in the pot:

(This is a really bad picture. In real life, it doesn't look this nasty--it looks good, and smells better.)

3. Turn the roast every half hour or so, keep the dish partially covered, and keep the heat very, very low.

4. Add milk as needed, to keep a low level of liquid in the pot. Keep cooking 'till the meat hits the magical 200 degree mark.

5. Wrap the meat tightly in foil and put it in the oven for a half hour or so to steam and tenderize a little more.

6. Pour the sauce into a wide-mouthed bowl to sit. Skim off the fat once it rises to the top.

Here's the finished product. The low, gentle heat of braising makes the pork melt-in-your mouth tender, and it turns the milk into a magical sauce--golden brown clusters with a roasty, nutty flavor and a chewy texture. You'd never know it was made from milk if you weren't told. I don't make this recipe often enough, because L doesn't like it. She has a problem with the transformation of the milk into sauce. I don't understand that.

Finally, here's Jasper, with the updated parts (boston butt and lard) noted:

Hog Jowls

Jowls are the meat and fat from the cheek area. Jasper will illustrate, here:


They are very fatty, and not very meaty. They are usually salt-cured, and sometimes smoked. Jowls make a good seasoning in other dishes. I like them with strong greens like collards, mustard, or turnip. Here's my recipe for hog jowls and greens. Make sure you have plenty of time, because it takes lots of time to get the jowls ready.

1 cured hog jowl, about 12 oz.
2 bunches of leafy greens like collards
1 medium onion
dash of hot sauce (optional)

Here's how the jowls look to start with:


Yummy?

Soak the jowl in about four quarts of water for three or four hours. (The jowls have to be soaked to cut back the salt content--otherwise, they leave the dish waaaaay too salty).

Roast the jowls at about 350 for a couple of hours in a deep pan. The cooked jowls look like this:


And the fat that cooks out in the oven looks like this:

That's why I roast the jowls--it renders out all that fat. Of course, I cook other stuff with the fat, but at least I don't load it all into the greens.

Dice the onion and the jowls. Saute them together in a big pot.

While the onion and jowls cook, stem the greens and chop them coarsely. Rinse the greens in a colander, but don't let them drain too much. The retained water will be enough to steam the greens and make a little bit of juice in the pot.

When the onions are soft, put the greens in the pot and cover tightly. Add the hot sauce if you like a little heat in the greens.

Cook for 15 minutes, stirring every five minutes or so to evenly coat the greens with the fat and hot sauce.



Serve with cornbread and something southern, like fried catfish.

My new cookbook

Nose to Tail Eating finally arrived today. The recipes include pea and pig's ear soup; jellied tripe; a whole chapter on lamb's brains; crispy pig's tails (because they would be bad mushy?); and ham in hay (in which the hay isn't a vegetable acting as a metaphor, it's hay. Dried grass or alfalfa or something--the recipe doesn't specify).

There's a recipe for haggis. Here's what Groundskeeper Willie, the Scottish school janitor on The Simpsons said about haggis:

Haggis! Get your fresh, hot haggis! Rabbit blood and brains, boiled in a wee sheep's stomach! Tastes as good as it sounds!

It's probably harder to get the ingredients for haggis than it is to make it--you need pretty much everything that comes inside a sheep--but I really, really want to try this recipe.

On the other hand, the book offers this recipe for how to eat radishes at their peak:

Pile your intact radishes onto a plate and have beside them a bowl of coarse sea salt and the good butter. To eat, add a knob of butter to your radish with a knife and a sprinkle of salt, then eat....

You can't go too far wrong with buttered veggies, whatever you may think of crispy pig's tails and the like.

Mmmmmmmm......chicharrones

I started the whole hog project yesterday, with the most accessible part of the pig--the outside. I went to a panaderia--a Mexican bakery--and bought some chicharrones for lunch. I thought chicharrones were the same thing that we call pork rinds: deep-fried pig skin, but they are more than that. There is a lot of meat attached, and a little fat as well. I think that they are side meat (bacon) that has been sliced thick (about 3/4 inch) without skinning, then deep-fried. I'm not sure because they were very busy, so I didn't have a chance to ask. It's a little different than bacon, though, because it's fresh rather than cured meat.



The chicharrones were good, but not great. The skin was really crunchy, and much more flavorful than bagged pork rinds. The meat was good, but kind of dry. Additionally, they weren't super-hot, so the fat was congealing and they had kind of a greasy texture that hot fat doesn't have. The chicharrones had been fried earlier in the day, and they were just sitting under a heat lamp. I think that they would probably be better if they were fresh out of the cooking grease (I wonder if they used lard? They should have.) Overall, I give these chicharrones about a five out of ten--I'd eat them again if they were offered to me, but I probably won't go out of my way to get them. This is an item that I won't eat a whole pig-worth this year; I bought half a pound, and didn't finish them. The thought of eating an entire hide isn't appealing in the least.

I'm not going to post a Jasper pic right now, because there's not a good way to mark off "skin." I'll just note that on the picture that I post him.

Introducing Jasper

This is Jasper, the Market Hog. He was the champion market hog at the Chicago International Livestock Exposition in the early 1970s. He was notable for being the first crossbred hog to win that title, and for having the perfect physique, at least by the standards of that time. Jasper had such a fine bod that they cut him into thin sections and preserved images of those slices (on slides? film? woodcuts?) for use as a teaching tool. I've had this model of Jasper since I was a kid,* and I've kept it by my computer since high school. Jasper is appearing here as a tracking device--every time I try a hog part, I'll mark the photo of Jasper so we can all keep track of which parts I have eaten.


*How many kids grew up with action figures of famous farm animals instead of sports stars or the like? And how many kids heard bed-time stories of farm animals that were famous for being meaty and tasty, instead of talking or hanging out with literary spiders and the like?

[EDIT--Sunday, 10:30 central: If you can't see Jasper, I don't know why. I didn't have any trouble seeing him all day Saturday and Sunday, then he disappeared Sunday night. I deleted the picture that kept disappearing and added a new copy of the picture in a new place, but I haven't the faintest idea why the picture would disappear, or whether the new photo will be more durable.]

More whole hog

I'm getting ready to start eating the whole pig. My first step was to order a cookbook--Nose to Tail Eating, which should tell me how to cook all the delicious(?) interior bits of the pig. I've also looked up some of those tasty interior bits on the internet, here and here. I've actually eaten more of those items that I realized, especially the variety meats. At least, I've eaten similar cuts from other animals (chicken hearts, beef tongue, and beef stomach). I'm actually a big fan of pork rinds--especially microwave pork rinds (yes, really, they are very good). I've never tried chicharrones, which are Mexican pork rinds. I don't know what makes them particularly Mexican, except that they are highly visible in some of the little taquerias that cater to Spanish-speakers in this part of the world. (Note to adventurous readers: if you ever go to a restaurant that caters to Spanish speakers, and they ask if you want hot sauce on the dish, or on the side, take it on the side. Trust me on this.)

My challenge to all of you is go to out and try some microwave pork rinds. They probably don't qualify as "real food," but they are a nice guilty pleasure. I'll try to find some chicharrones, and report back in a little while.

Going Whole Hog

Wait a minute--are you saying that you're never going to eat another animal again?
Yes.
What about bacon?
No.
What about ham?
No!
What about pork chops?
Dad, those all come from the same animal!
Yeah, right, Lisa. A magical, wonderful, animal.

--From The Simpsons episode, "Lisa the Vegetarian."

Homer was right. The pig is a magical, wonderful animal. It's the most widely-distributed large farm animal. It eats the widest range of stuff, under the widest range of conditions. And it provides the widest range of cuts to eat, from nose to tail.

Pigs loom larger in my memory than other livestock. We lived on a hog farm until I was three. One of my earliest (and worst) memories is of using a stock trailer as a jungle gym, falling down into the trailer, and getting a mouthful of what the hogs left behind on the floor. I remember how cute baby pigs are, and how big adult pigs look to a toddler. I remember how cozy warm the farrowing (that's birthing) barn is in the winter, and the smell that it has. Later, we lived on a small acreage, and I raised at least a couple of hogs for 4-H every year from the time I was nine until I graduated from high school. We put a hog in the freezer every year, too, so I grew up eating lots of pork.

We had a neighbor who was an old rancher (as a kid, he learned to ride and rope from an old man who, in his youth, had driven cattle up the Chisholm Trail to Kansas--how cool is that). This rancher leased a small part of his ranch to a teacher who raised pigs as a hobby. Part of the lease payment was a fat hog, on the hoof, delivered after the first frost each fall. The rancher would butcher the hog there behind the house to have pork for the winter. One year, I rode my bike over and helped him out a little. That was the first time I ever saw an animal butchered and turned into food. Incidentally, this rancher was famous in our church for making wonderful rolls that no one could duplicate. He would freely give out the recipe (I wish I had a copy of it now), but no one could make rolls as good as his. The secret? He used lard instead of shortening, and it gave the rolls a lighter texture.

I've been around a lot of hogs in my life, and I've eaten a lot of pork. However, I realized today that my gustatory experiences with the pig are somewhat limited. Pigs are famous for being eminently edible--farmers tout that you can eat everything but the squeal--but I've only had a few of the big muscles. Today, I resolved to remedy that situation: I'm going to eat a whole hog, and post it all here for your enjoyment.

This is the part where I get all lawyer-ish, and set forth the terms and conditions that make up "eating a whole hog."

1. I'm going to eat a WHOLE hog, not A whole hog. That is, I'm going to eat each of the parts that make up a whole hog, rather than the parts of one single pig.

2. I'm not going to eat the whole thing by myself. I'm going to share with family, friends, guests, well-wishers, and food adventurers.

3. "Whole" is used here in the platonic sense, not the accounting sense. I'm going to cook and eat a meal made from every single part of a hog, but I'm not necessarily going to eat the entirety of each major muscle group. In other words, I'm not going to eat thirty pounds of pork chops, two entire hams, two entire shoulders (well, I may eat two shoulders, because I love pulled pork). I'll try every part, but the total of what I cook and eat probably won't total up to the 200 pound live weight of a hog.

4. Finally, though I'm going to try every part of the pig, I'm not going keep eating anything that's nasty. I reserve the right to stop eating any part after I've tried a bite. Some of the parts worry me--chitterlings and feet in particular--but I'll be a trooper and at least taste everything.

Keep checking back, and I'll give you a guided tour of Homer's magical, wonderful animal. And, as Homer has said so often:

Mmmmmmm......poooooooorrrrrrrkkkkk.........