Spiced and Cured Pork Shoulder

Posted on May 26, 2009 by ryan

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Picnic shoulder -- Upper part of the shoulder, right behind the neck

55% salt, 45% sugar, chili, Madras curry, Sichuan peppercorns, garlic

Mix the dry cure mix

Rub and massage the meat

Suck and Save, leaving almost all the cure behind. Cure for 10-14 days.

Salted beef bung

Soak bung for 72 hours

Clean and rinse out bung

Check for leaks

Firmer to touch and apparent water loss

Remove from bag

Wash and dry cured shoulder

Bung and shoulder

Put shoulder into bung

Tie shoulder nice and tight. Once tied, make small pricks with a needle to remove air pockets.

Hang in 60°F fridge with RH of 60-70%

Dry for 4-7 weeks 'till solid to touch, no squishy give

Nice and dry on the outside, firm and moist in the middle. (Yes those are cured rabbit faces in the background.)

Slice nice and thin

Sliced, spiced pork shoulder

Post Pig Butchering Class

Posted on April 23, 2009 by ryan

Next class May 30th and June 7th, RSVP here!

Below is a email from one of the students that participated in last weekends Butcher class and it’s a awesome testimonial. Thanks to everyone that participated, I had a blast and make sure you check out all of Lydia’s pictures.

Thank you La Cocina for such a awesome venue, Lydia for the great review, Isabel Pazos of El Buen Comer and Grocery Eats for all the killer posts! Here is a link to another great post from Nermo, thanks!

Stay tuned… a plethora of classes soon to come, sausage, goat, rabbits, salami, torchon, turduckens and many more.

Ryan

I took the whole pig butchering class from Ryan Farr on Sunday. Holy fucking shit was it amazing. Best $75 bucks I’ve spent in a long time. Ryan Farr gave a demo breaking down the entire pig by hand with a little ass knife proving it ain’t the size of the knife but how you wield that fucker. He broke it into big ass primals and then gave everyone their own chunk of the beast. I was given the pork shoulder with the entire front leg attached. I got to break out the picnic part of the shoulder and then separate the butt of the shoulder from the shank. Then the moment, I paid $75 for came. I got to saw the through the fucking shank and separate the foot with a hacksaw. At the exact same time, dude next to me was going full sav removing the face from the pig’s head. Fucking gnarly but awesome. There were only about 12 of us so we all got a chance to attack large chunks and do some finer trimming and portioning. I took home about 10# of meat. I’ve got that foot and shank in a cure right now and I’ll be brining my pork belly for bacon tomorrow.

The homie Unagi just bought a gangster ass smoker so I’m gonna hook up with dude and get my smoke on once the cure and brine comes off these pig parts in about 5 days.

Farr is super fucking cool and is going to be doing more classes this summer. So if you want to boss the fuck up and learn how to make salami, sausages or butcher a whole lamb in the coming months holler at a player. I’m officially up on game. I’m committed to Rick Ross Magnificent this shit.

If you aren’t a pussy here’s a gallery — http://gallery.me.com/lpopovich/100026

Spicy Beef Tendon

Posted on March 29, 2009 by ryan

: Beef tendon

: Tendon, ginger, garlic, chili, sichuan pepper, and fennel seed

: Add all dry ingredients into vita mix or spice grinder and pulverize

: If you dare… stick your nose it the blender and take a big whiff, 10 bucks say you will only do that once

: Add salt and sugar to spice mix

: Massage tendon with the cure mix

: Suck and seal, let cure in fridge for 5-10 days depending on size

: Fresh out of cure, brush big chunks of cure off, don’t wash

: Special General Kleinman’s sauce, baby leeks and carrots

: Add unwashed cured tendon, sauce, leeks and carrots to a pot of water

: Bring to a boil and turn down to a simmer

: Simmer for 5-8 hours till tendon is completely tender through

: Mmmm done and ready to eat

: Cool completely before slicing, you can even slightly freeze to make slicing easier

: Slicing

: Sliced spicy tendon, its a long process, but ohhh so good

: My wife’s famous spicy tendon, pork, rice and kimchi bowl. Always hits the spot

Cured Rolled Face

Posted on February 2, 2009 by ryan

: Scrub and clean face

: Salt heavily and massage the cure into the skin

: Salt and rub the inside too

: Lemon, thyme, ginger and black pepper

: Roll the face with the tongue and cure for 5 days

: Unroll after the 5 days and rinse off cure

: Remove all hairs that have been left behind… shave, snip or torch

: Squeaky clean

: Lay down flesh side up and remove ears, julienne the ears and dice the tongue

: Add spices, thyme, microplane ginger and lemon

: Add the cured ears and tongue to the face

: Roll up

: Wrap in a apron or cheesecloth

: Tie as tight as possible

: Suck and seal

: Sous vide for 72 hours at 66.5 c

: Remove and let cool down before removing from bag

: Remove from bag and tie as tight as possible

: Real tight

: Hang overnight

: Ready to cut

: Ahh, real sexy, you can see the jowls, tongues and ears

: Slice cold and should be eaten strait from the slicer, friction warms the fats up perfectly

: Rolled face is great strait up or with mustard and beer

CHEFS Thanks Meatpaper

Posted on January 24, 2009 by ryan

On behalf of all of us at the C.H.E.F.S. program I would like to thank Sasha Wizansky of Meatpaper and Mark Pasternak of Devils Gulch for there gracious donation of the pig that we butchered at the issue #6 party. Since the live butchery demo at Acme Chophouse, the students and I have completely made hot dogs, consomme, rolled face, rendered lard and bacon. We currently are curing curried copa. In the future the step by step process with the finished product will be posted when complete.

Thank you again to everyone at Meatpaper, the volunteers, all the meat loving guests and the chefs that killed it that night.

Chef Thom Fox (Acme Chophouse)
Chef Staffan Terje (Perbacco)
Chef Leif Hedendal
Sam White & Chris Kronner & Friends (OPENrestaurant)