Sunday, January 15, 2012

Chitty Goes Back to School!





Well hello there! Chitty back on the keyboard on this one - for some brand new hits!


Chitty was felling a little rusty on the butchery, so Mama Chit bought him a little refresher coarse at his favorite pork store Pine Street Market! Chitty LOVE going there and buying bacon, guanciale, salami ect. x infinity. Especially the GUANCIALE! (Is Chitty's favorite, Italian jowl bacon, cured not smoked ala Lardo. SO GOOD!)

First, Chitty got to see all the curing meats.

He got lost in a magical world of fantasy and dream, enraptured, as symphonies played in his head!


Then we got down to brass tacks! From the slaughter house, the pigs came in halves, then each half was broken down to shoulder, middle and hams! As you can see here the shoulder portion has the jowl still attached for the guanciale!



















Once this happened, the real magic took place. And so the belly (bacon) parted from the spareribs!


Also Chitty found out that pork belly actually exists over the ribs since bacon had to get separated from the wonderful spare ribs. This section, once removed makes like a three foot long slab of BACON! But it gets cut so that the smoking happens juuuuust right.


Also Chitty realized the epiphany! Baby-back ribs are just half a pork chop stuck together in a row! That is to say: if you leave baby backs stuck to the meat north of it, and slice between the ribs, you have a pork chop!!!



Once you get the sides of pork cut in 3 pieces, you have some desicions to make. Do you want full spare ribs or St. Louis style ribs and a rib-let? Do you want full pork chops, or baby back ribs and boneless pork chops? Do You want tenderloin and center-cut chops, or a porterhouse with the tenderloin on. This type of metaphysical question can send the head spinning and take an eternity to answer! Chitty figures it out eventually!

Chitty say if you like pork check out Pine Street Market, and if you really like pork take a class, INCREDIBLE and well worth the money!

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