Sunday, February 28, 2010

Eating a Pig

[Originally posted on Green Roof Growers.]

On January 28th, I butchered half a pig from Slagel Farms in front of a few people. Six different cooks used almost all of that pig to create this menu over the following two Sundays. Anna of Turning Fork Supper Club pulled it all together. [Part 1 has the butchering info/photos.]
My original idea of turning The Spectacle in on itself to end up with something more honest fell a bit short; setting aside what I wanted, on its own terms, I couldn't have asked for anything more from my adventure with a pig.
A few pictures from the two dinners--









From dinner number two:












We were very happy with how it all turned out and I'd encourage any of our readers to give it a try.

Some numbers.

From the 94 pound half pig we made -
  • 25 appetizer portions of testa
  • 25 appetizer portions of pork terrine with tenderloin inlay
  • 40 appetizer portions of sausage
  • 40 appetizer portions of rillettes
  • 25 servings of rib pasta sauce
  • 5 pound cured shoulder roast - 10 servings
  • 15 pound house cured ham - 30 servings
  • 18 pounds porchetta (belly wrapped around loin, stuffed with fennel) - 30+ servings
  • 1 pound cracklings
  • 16 quarts gelatinous pork stock
  • 10 pounds cotechino sausage (need some more pork shoulder for this) - will serve 15-20
Only the shoulder roast and the cotechino sausage weren't served at one of the two meals.

The ingredients cost roughly $450, with the pig accounting for a little less than half of that. I'm guessing that it took about 150 hours to put it all together.

More photos in the slide shows.

Dinner #1 -



Dinner #2 -

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