Year of the Pig

Last weekend was my birthday. Whats 34? That’s a throwaway birthday, but if nothing else, a good day for some ribs. We had some people over to play card games–Canasta, if you can believe that. The day before I bought 4 racks of spare ribs from the supermarket. I trimmed them up, realizing that I have gotten quite a bit better at the trimming, although it is still a little time consuming. I took off the remaining membrane, and some of the pockets of fat. Then when the rain stopped on Saturday afternoon and I was ready to smoke, I took the ribs and brined them in a light salt solution with a ratio of 1/4 cup of salt to 1 quart of water, for 30 minutes. I had read that this would help keep them moist so I thought it was worth a try.

I seasoned the racks based on two recipes from Paul Kirks’ “Championship Barbecue” book, which I like very much. I seasoned two racks with a thick coat of store bought saltless Lemon Pepper, and for the other two racks I chopped up about a tablespoon fresh rosemary and a tablespoon of thyme and ground them together with a head of pressed garlic using a mortar and pestle, til it was a thick garlicly paste. I rubbed the garlic mixture onto the racks. Since it didn’t coat the ribs like the rubs I usually use, I was afraid it wasn’t gonna really impart much flavor. I did my best to really rub the paste into the ribs, and it turns out that the flavor took very well.

I smoked the ribs all told for about five hours, using hickory chunks and some bourbon barrel oak chips. The temperature built up slow, but stayed around 225. About halfway through I turned them over in the rack, and basted them by rubbing butter on them, the more fat the better right?! Here is a picture of them at the halfway point:

After the halfway mark, whenever I opened the smoker (every 30 min or so) I would put a little smear of butter along the top of the racks and I would also spritz them with apple juice to keep them moist.

When the rib meat had drawn back off the tip of the bone by a good quarter inch or so it was time to take them off. I let them sit for about ten minutes and they looked wonderful:

I sliced them up and placed them on a platter to serve. Both recipes proved to be delicious and they were a big hit with everyone, but I especially liked the potent and simple flavor of the garlic and herbs ribs. To be honest, I found them to be the best ribs I had ever made. I wonder if the brining or the butter-basting made the difference, or something else, but I am telling you, these ribs were delicious. I was very happy with the result. These were the best birthday present I could ask for.

As for the ribulation, including that night an subsequent leftovers (yum) I ate ten delicious ribs, bringing the Year of the Pig count to a respectable 133 ribs. And counting. Thank you piggie!

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Well, I didn’t really expect to be giving Fette Sau another try so soon, but I am glad I did, so I can set the record straight. This time, I was happy to find their food much more enjoyable. I wound up in Williamsburg again last Friday night, looking to get some dinner with my very hungry friend, Squidocto. He was very hungry, the poor guy, but we were only a couple of blocks from Fette Sau, and I was willing to try it again.

This time, they had no ribs. We waited in a long line going back and forth about what we should order. In then end, we ended up with a healthy heaping tray of food, a winning pork trifecta with some very tasty beef cheeks thrown in for good measure, plus a side of beans, 3 Gus’ pickles, and some saurkraut.

We dug right in, especially Matt:

We had a delightful dinner, moving back and forth between all our choices: We had a solid helping of the pulled pork, which was good and tasty, especially when you managed to get some of the nice blackened smokey bits. I liked it very much with the vinegar sauce that was on the table. We had a sausage, that was nothing special, but enjoyable. We also also split a bone-in pork chop rib which was very good, getting better and better as you approached the bone. And although it was beef, I have to mention the beef cheeks. I have never had such a thing and they are hard to describe. It was dark reddish meat, soft but chewy. The texture and taste were both interesting, intriguing even…savory and downright good. I am afraid you will have to try them for yourself to see what I mean!

We left very satisfied and happy with ourselves. This was a much better trip to Fette Sau. I still feel like I have to try their ribs again, but I am afraid that the problem is that my expectations have just become too high.

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My diet over the last couple months has had no shortage of pork, but it has been sadly short on ribs. I am trying to make up for that this week.

Above is a crappy photo of meat. Sorry about that. The meat in question however is from the Brooklyn barbecue restaurant, Fette Sau. I have already mentioned this place in several posts, including Squidocto’s preview-review about it, but I had yet to try it for myself…until last weekend!

I arrived in Willimsburg around 10 pm not having had a bite to eat since lunch, and headed straight to Fette Sau. The place was hopping with Saturday night Williamsburg hipster types, and a hoofed it right through them to the counter and ordered up a rack of the baby back ribs which are served by the pound and cost around $25. The friendly young woman dropped my rack on the tray and I promptly picked it up and sat it down on one of the long tables, next to the not-that-funny-LCD-screen fireplace. I sat down excitedly and purposefully with my rack of ribs, ready to thoroughly enjoy them.

I planned to take my time with these ribs and savor them. The first bite was promising. They had a nice texture and solid smoky flavor. I have to say, however, I was disappointed. I mean, don’t get me wrong, they are tasty and enjoyable, but nothing to blow your mind. Also, the meat was a little dry and bland compared to say, Texas Hill Country, who’s ribs will blow your mind. Anyway, I got a little bored with these ribs about halfway through the rack, but nevertheless they made a very satisfying tasty meal for a man in desperate need of some ribs. To be fair, I will definitely come back and give the ribs another try. A trip to Fette Sau is certainly still a good time, the place itself has a real nice fun and low-key atmosphere that I dug.

Now, did someone mention Texas Hill Country? Oh yeah, that was me! I made it out to Texas Hill Country again last night, excited to relive my previous experiences with their wonderful pork spareribs. Could it be that they are really as good as I remember? For that I would be willing to put up with their zoo of Manhattanite customers and their inane seating methods, which are frankly just plain irritating. My friend Jay was playing with a Patsy Cline tribute band called the Poor Man’s Roses in the downstairs level (which typically has a good line up of bands), and my friend Ben and I saddled up to the bar to enjoy some ribs, some rye whisky and some music. The band was very good; they do an excellent job of reproducing the sweet, mellow, soulful music of Patsy Cline. As it got later, the crowd began to thin out and we moved over to a table to watch the band, and they even dedicated a nice version of Bill Monroe’s Blue Moon of Kentucky to yours truly, which was very nice, thanks. So, were the ribs as good as I remembered?? Yes, every bit and more so. God bless Texas Hill Country!

Rock on, I finally get to ribulate again! I think I left off at 108 ribs. Now I add 12 from Fette Sau and 3 from Texas Hill Country, which oddly enough, is about an equivalent amount of meat, bringing the grand total for the Year of the Pig to 123. Thank you piggies one and all, and may your ribs find their way to Texas Hill Country!

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A couple months ago, I wrote an entry praising the fine European style pork products of the Ridgewood Pork Store in Ridgewood Queens. Since I have gotten back from my trip to Europe, I appreciate this place all the more, and even though it is a long trek for me, I have managed to get back there a couple times, never to be disappointed except when they are closed.

Anyway, shortly after I got back, Jonel, the owner of the Ridgewood Pork Store, contacted me and sent me some pictures of a “Whole Boneless Pig” they had roasted in the store. He invited me to come by and try it, but I couldn’t make it out there that week. However, Squidocto was more than happy to walk around the corner from his place to check it out and report back. Here is what he had to say:

Squidocto’s report from the field:

I just went and got me some boneless roast pig. At this point they’ve
taken the head off (just as well — that looked nasty), and are just
making slices of the body. It’s absolutely delicious! The meat is
mixed up with some kind of breading and various spices. The result is
a light, fall-apart textured meat with a very rich taste. It feels
rather like an entire meal wrapped in one — a sort of pork
thanksgiving dinner.

I have to agree, that from the photos, it looked a little gruesome, but it sure sounds interesting. I wrote back to Jonel to ask what it is was exactly. He said:

We roast the pig whole, then while it was still warm we pull out all the bones. We chop the meat up, season it up, and then put all back in the pig skin. We tie it up and then let cool in the fridge over night.

Hmm! Sounds like a crazy pork meatloaf on steroids! I definitely hope to try it when they do it again. I am curious also where Jonel got this idea: is it a tradional dish he knows from somewhere, or is it something he just came up with? Maybe he will leave a comment here and tell us!

I love that these guys at the Ridgewood Pork Store seem to genuinely enjoy making the products they sell and seem to like trying new and unusual things. Thanks to Jonel for sharing this with us!

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Well loyal readers, I am back. Did you miss me? I certainly missed y’all! What can I say? I am sorry I have left you in the lurch over the past few weeks. I had a really great trip. You can check out all of my pictures here. Among all of the various highlights of traveling around Europe for 3 weeks, pork was certainly up there, and we enjoyed a lot of it.

God knows, the Europeans love their pork, and there is no shortage of it. Everytime you turn a corner, there it is another Charcuterie, windows laden with untold porky treasures.

I realized how good it was going to be the first day we got there, driving up into the French Alps from Geneva. Outside of Chamonix-Mont-Blanc, we passed an outdoor stand loaded with baskets full of sausages. We pulled over and got out of the car to peruse. I looked with slack jawed amazement at the unbelievable assortment of sausages: plain pork, smoked, duck, with nuts, with herbs, with olives, with cheese, with berries, with whatever-other-thing-that-could-fit-into-the-casing! It was amazing, and I wanted to try them all. This trip was gonna be tough.

All of these lumpy looking sausages, stuffed in natural casings, covered with a white mold, sitting unattended outside in baskets certainly looked strange and foreign to me; not a sight you would see in America. But I soon realized these sausages were very typical, and delicious. We somehow made our mind up, and got one of the herb “encrusted” sausages, mainly covered with rosemary. If I need to tell you, it was delicious.

We had many great meals that were nothing more than cheese, bread, and sausage in one of their many varied forms. I have heard friends come back from Europe saying as much, and now I can really understand. All of those things are so fresh and readily available everywhere, and simply wonderful.

We spent some time in the Val D’Aosta region of Italy, and sampled some of the hearty mountain cuisine there, including this wonderful porky appetizer:

In the front is Mocetta (which is actually a very nice cured beef) and in the back is Lardo, thinly sliced cured pig fat, which was savory and sweet, delicate and rich, with a great, soft, smooth texture. Wow, the wonders of pig fat.

In the town of Aosta, we wandered around looking at Roman ruins and pork. We randomly went into this charcuterie:

We went in and struck up a conversation with a very friendly and interesting young butcher (barely pictured in the shadows of the door in the picture above) who was happy to practice his English and seemingly anxious to move away from his small town. He gave us the low down about some of the local meats including Lardo, Mocetta, and also Boudin Sausage:

Boudin, which is also the name of a famous Cajun sausage, is a Val D’Aostan specialty that is prepared from potatoes, diced lard, beetroot, spices, sometimes carrots or wine, and coagulated pork blood. The sausages are stuffed in thin natural gut casings and tied and hung to dry. It was a really mild, sweet sausage which we cut up and ate at room temperature. The potatoes gave it a really soft creamy consistancy, and it was a great marriage of vegetable matter and pork fat. As for the blood, if that turns you off don’t let it; the Boudin was delicious.

In general it was a pleasure to go into any little charcuterie and look around. We waited patiently in line for about 45 minutes in this one, in the town of Noyers, France. We were only third in line but each customer took their sweet time carefully selecting each item they wanted. I enjoyed passing the time in line watching the butcher and a couple of assistants carefully butchering a whole pig. Everything looked wonderfully delicious, and we ended up getting some quiche-like tarts and some duck sausage.

In most cities we were in, there are market days in town that put US “Farmer’s Markets” to shame, and offer a great selection of produce, cheese, meat, and of course sausage! This vendor in Beaune had a great selection of sausage. We tried his smoked sausage which was plain, but very enjoyable.

This market in Colmar was great, and we loaded up on cheese and produce and again, you guessed it, sausage. I actually went up to this vendor and bought a smoked sausage, and an onion tart. Alissa and I sat down in a nearby park and split the tart for lunch. I decided to have a bite of the sausage. It was good, very good! I had another bite, and another, and soon it was gone. I walked right back to the vendor and asked for another. The woman laughed and guessed that I liked it very much, and seemed genuinely flattered by my appreciation of her pork products. We ended up having a nice exchange with her, with our very limited French, about sausage, being from America and our trip.

Ok, so everyone associates the French with good food, and that is all well and good, cause it’s true. The Germans however get a pretty bad rap, which I generally found unfounded. Yes, there is some bad food but in general, and especially if you like pork, you are in luck in Germany. How about this Alsatian dish (I know its still France, but also very German), called Choucroute:

Unfortunately this picture doesn’t quite show what a porky wonder this meal really was, so let me describe it. On the bottom was a really wonderful spiced sauerkraut (choucroute) with Juniper berries, literally piled with a selection of pork that only a starving or insane person could eat. I was both. The pork pile included: Lardon (basically a very thick-cut maple-flavored bacon, delicious), a “Strasbourg” sausage (basically like a big, and very good quality hot dog), a thicker and more savory sausage, a ham steak, and some jambon d’or ( “ham off the bone”, which was s