Wednesday, September 3, 2008
The Great Porchetta Quest: Fruition (again, but better)
Marcia's piece in the Tribune just about says it all. My second go-round with porchetta (this time purchased from the extremely friendly and helpful Jim and Deanna Crocker) was more of a success than the first. I dropped the amount of rosemary used, cooked about a third of the meat as the first time and added a healthy dose of chopped garlic to the rub. Much, much better.
One of the best things about porchetta turned out to be its resilience. I sliced the pork at about 4:45 Saturday night and thought people would start eating when they showed up beginning at 5:00. Wrong. It was 6:00 or 6:30 before people really started getting into pork, mounding heaps of the stuff onto plates and buns. I thought surely the chafing dish keeping everything warm would by now leave us all with banquet room hockey pucks but no, it'd stood up quite well. Thanks no doubt to the ample amount of fat in the meat it was still terrific after two hours in a hot steam-bath. Try that with a boneless porkchop.
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2 comments:
Hi Scott,
How was the texture?
The texture on attempt number two was far superior to my first go-round. The first one was a fattier hog and when cooked with the skin on, rendered little. So you ended up with an alarming amount of fat on your plate (albeit with tasty meat mixed in).
This time it was perfect. The belly-protected loin stayed tender, even after an hour in the chafing dish. It wasn't grainy at all (you know how sometimes that happens with pork loin you overcook?). The belly melted with little resistance. It wasn't crunchy like bacon but soft and rich and flavorful. It was great too.
Altogether a very forgiving piece of meat.
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