Large Black Pork Porterhouse – to grill, roast, or cook sous vide

[Unpopular Poet]

Good morning!  After a wonderful brunch at Publican in Chicago this morning, I ran over to Publican Quality Meats next door and couldn't resist picking up this pork porterhouse roast for dinner tonight.  I have never cooked pork with a fat cap like this and was wondering what the consensus would be -- should I sous vide and finish by crisping the skin (after cross hatching), should I season it, start it in a pan and finish it in the oven or put it on the big green egg at about 275-300 and just let it go?  Tough choices...thanks for the help!

 

Dan

[jayt90]

Soius vide may not finish the large fat cap unless you devote time and temperature.

I would sear and finish in a 325 F oven or BGE., to an internal 155 F.

[Baron d'Apcher]

Do you mind sharing how much you paid per/lb for the loin rib roast with deckle (it isn’t a porterhouse).  Porterhouse has the tenderloin and is further down the loin after the ribs.

 

I have had similar loins with such a high fat ratio and unless you like eating pork fat, there is not much to do while keeping the skin on, like eating an orange with 40% pith.  Large Blacks are not a lard pig and the ratio looks a bit high (the diet may not be optimal, it takes more energy to put on fat than lean).  Ideally, I think the fatcap  should be about ½ of what it is.  Large Blacks are known for not having excessive back fat like Mangalica or Gloucestershire old spots.  At first glance the color and marbling of the loin does not seem like it would rank highly on the official coloring marbling scale (grading for hogs).  Marbling is one thing, an outside layer of fat is entirely another.  If you’d like, I can give you the email address of the director of animal sciences at the national pork board, PhD at Iowa State University for a more knowledgeable opinion. He and the former director have been very helpful in answering questions/concerns I had concerning lean/fat, diet and slaughtering issues.

 

All this talk of heritage breeds is starting to dilute the term since a purebred hog can be crap if it isn't raised, fed, slaughtered or sold right.  

 

If you don’t like pork fat on its own that much, you could take off the first layer of fat with the skin (there is a natural seam where it will peel away relatively easily).  The skin itself is dark and not that appetizing, and might have lots of black hair ends in it.  Freeze the fat and use it later diced or ground for forcemeats and whatnot then dry the skin out to use for thickening the water when cooking beans.  After that, brine, lightly smoke, SV and roast could be very worth the while.  Keeping the skin on might leave too much fat to chew though.

Edited February 8, 2015 by Baron d'Apcher (log)

[dcarch]

Cut out all the fat to make lardo.

 

Then sous vide chops.

 

dcarch

[Mendel C-k]

Remove the fat and skin, then separate, keeping about 1cm of fat on skin. poach the skin for 3h or so until gelatinous. Scrape off most of the fat of skin and then blast in very hot oven till you have crackling (you may want to do this in a pan with skin on a rack and a little water underneath to stop burning). For extra good cracking, dehydrate the skin in a dehydrator/cool oven/fridge.

 

With the huge fat cap that you have taken off - either render and use for various things or go with lardo - the latter being much more interesting and probably a better use since you have a nice intact block of fat.

 

with the rest of the rib, you could either leave a bit of fat on it (.5cm) and then either SV or low temp oven, then sear in pan to finish. Serve with the cracking you just made and a nice sauce.

 

I'd probably do the crackling, lardo, the take the main eye and surrounding muscle off the bones, SV that, then with the remaining bones and meat scraps, and make a stock/sauce to serve with the meat and crackling. Good times!

[Unpopular Poet]

@ Baron -- the price per pound was around $18/19 a pound -- obviously super high for pork, but fine for a single use today.  

 

The skin has already been removed from the piece, so I am out of luck on removing it to make crackling.  I have scored the skin all around and plan on roasting the whole piece with the fat intact - It is going to obviously be super fatty, but that was anticipated.   This may end up being a really expensive bust out, but thats fine -- I had just never seen a fat cap this large on a piece of pork before and I had to give it a shot.

 

Thanks to everybody for the responses -- I think Sous Vide would have been interesting, if I had a whole lot more time...  Have a great Sunday!

 

Dan

[Anna N]

Unpopular Poet

I do hope you get to enjoy that fat some way or another. At $18-$19 per pound .....

Did the same thing myself with pork loin from heritage pig once. Never again. But it was a valuable lesson and I don't regret the lesson.

[Baron d'Apcher]

Did the same thing myself with pork loin from heritage pig once. Never again. But it was a valuable lesson and I don't regret the lesson.

 

Heritage breeds aren't entirely worthless; it matters more on how they are raised/fed and purebred hogs are liable to have less variances from animal to animal.  Once too many breeds get mixed it becomes a crapshoot and rare breeds are mostly sold for novelty; they are either hard to raise, don't reproduce well or present other factors that have contributed to their falling out of farmers' favor. LB's however have large litters, good feed efficiency and instinctively forage. It is possible that this hog was not a purebred and crossed with a lard pig, to keep them warm during mid western winters.

 

$18/lb is very, very expensive for that type of cut and yield and I would not feel comfortable selling that to a customer (more so if it was sold as a porterhouse).

 

I am curious to read about how the skin turns out, particularly since all black hogs have very dark skin to begin with.

Edited February 9, 2015 by Baron d'Apcher (log)

[Mendel C-k]

Heritage breeds aren't entirely worthless; it matters more on how they are raised/fed and purebred hogs are liable to have less variances from animal to animal.  Once too many breeds get mixed it becomes a crapshoot and rare breeds are mostly sold for novelty; they are either hard to raise, don't reproduce well or present other factors that have contributed to their falling out of farmers' favor. LB's however have large litters, good feed efficiency and instinctively forage. It is possible that this hog was not a purebred and crossed with a lard pig, to keep them warm during mid western winters.

 

$18/lb is very, very expensive for that type of cut and yield and I would not feel comfortable selling that to a customer (more so if it was sold as a porterhouse).

 

I am curious to read about how the skin turns out, particularly since all black hogs have very dark skin to begin with.

I think there's no skin, just shadow

[Anna N]

Heritage breeds aren't entirely worthless; it matters more on how they are raised/fed and purebred hogs are liable to have less variances from animal to animal.  Once too many breeds get mixed it becomes a crapshoot and rare breeds are mostly sold for novelty; they are either hard to raise, don't reproduce well or present other factors that have contributed to their falling out of farmers' favor. LB's however have large litters, good feed efficiency and instinctively forage. It is possible that this hog was not a purebred and crossed with a lard pig, to keep them warm during mid western winters.

 

$18/lb is very, very expensive for that type of cut and yield and I would not feel comfortable selling that to a customer (more so if it was sold as a porterhouse).

 

I am curious to read about how the skin turns out, particularly since all black hogs have very dark skin to begin with.

I did not mean to dismiss all heritage/purebred hogs by any means. I do think if you were going to go that route then you need to have very specific plan in place to make good use of the fat which costs as much as the meat.

[BKEats]

you need to serve this meat at rare, to medium rare.. there is very little marble in the meat.. i would concentrate on the fat itself.. it is the best part. i would trim about a quarter inch of the fat at it's thickest part for maybe for the length of an inch, just to that turn. I would spend most of my time trying to render the fat.. The rind is really what makes that meat special. serve it pink.. as pink as you want. if you think you would like it served like a black and blue tuna, you would. The rind needs to be well cooked. salt, a tiny bit of lemon. keep a little salt box of crunchy salt on the table.

Edited February 9, 2015 by BKEats (log)

[Unpopular Poet]

@ Baron -- I agree -- the price was way out in the stratosphere -- but I knew I was grossly overpaying at the time I bought it -- I just wanted to try it out...

 

There is no skin -- I have so far been able to successfully render a ton of the fat off the top, after cutting the crosshatch into it.  What rests on top now, as it roasts away in a very low oven, is a nice crispy golden brown cap that will undoubtedly be delicious.  I simply salt and peppered the pork and added some whole thyme and some garlic to the pan.  I have been spooning the fat and basting once every 20 minutes or so and it is getting close to optimum temp.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

This week I bought what looks like the same cut of pork, but in my case it was butchered into three nice chops.  This was plain old supermarket pork at $2.99 per pound.  However the package I selected had a particularly generous amount of fat (though unfortunately nothing compared to the original poster's picture).

 

I anovaed the chops at 61 deg F for a couple hours and pan seared one for my dinner, taking particular care to brown the luscious cap of fat.

[btbyrd]

Cut into chops and cook it on the ground over the coals of a still-burning fire using a cast iron pan and loads of butter. If you'd like to add herby flavors, simply reach for the nearest tree.

 

[rotuts]

UP:  what was the final dish like ?

[Unpopular Poet]

So, after rendering the fat for probably 45 minutes, I slightly browned it on the sides and placed in a ~250-275 (I decreased the temp from 275 to 250 after 30 minutes) degree oven in a pan with fat, thyme and a whole garlic bulb with the top sliced off for the better part of 2 hours.  I let it sit for 25 minutes before carving.  This was not an everyday pork roast by anyone's standards -- it was pure gluttony.  The end result was something between a pork roast and a wonderfully roasted belly.  The meat itself was basically super tender and moist. The fat cap was very flavorful and crispy - the cap picked up a nice saltiness and thyme flavor from the basting.  The bones were super tasty (only 2 on the plate because I ate one of them mid carving...) as well.  The pictures are pretty blah, but you get the idea.  Taking BKEats advice on lemon, I served it on a bed of arugula tossed with capers, shallots and a lemon/olive oil dressing.  It cut the fattiness really well.

 

btbyrd -- next time I will absolutely cut them into chops and do that.  I can't wait for my next camping trip....