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!

Drunkard's Pork Belly Flambe!

As Always we at CR use the finest meat. Today we picked out 3 lbs of choice pigpack from Your Dekalb Farmers Market. You can recognize pork belly because it looks like the world's tallest piece of bacon.

We marinate it in: White House Apple Cider Vinegar (Winchester, VA), rum (Cap't Morgan Private Stock), salt, rum, pepper and rum.

Then we roast it at 400°F for an houresque period, over a bed of potatoes, onions, and apples in the marinade and duck-pork stock. We make sure that the veggies are cooked and the pork is getting crispy on top.

Then all the solids are strained and food-processed and then returned to the stock, with some orange juice, balsamic vinegar, rum, brown sugar and MORE RUM! Then it is reduced for gravy.

Meanwhile the pork gets cold so we return it to the oven for five minutes with a coat of sugar and salt.

Then we flambe it in Everclear, maybe 2 shots worth.

We make sure to let the whole thing burn out.

The Flambe is then served over the gravy and served with Mama Chit's Sweet Potato Casserole.

Wooooo lawdie! This is good. Well anything in its own gravy tends to be good. Anyways, pork belly melts in your mouth and tastes like the very essence of pork! The flambe crystalizes the sugars and gives it a perfectly crispy exterior. The only problem is that the pork belly is so heavy, you definitely get into a meat coma afterwards. Big shout out to Mama Chit for her wicked sweet potato casserole.