Working Through the Pig

With a share of fresh whey fed pork from Tea Hills Farm, the race is on to eat what I can fresh before freezing the rest. I've given myself five days from the kill to maximize the consumption. On a side note, from what I understand the farm has a pretty cool way of getting their whey for the pigs. After making food drop offs in Cle (a good hour fifteen from the farm), they stop by Lake Erie Creamery and fill up for the return trip with whey left over from the creamery's goat cheese operation. The goat milk is local too. Not a bad way to maximize the efficiency of those miles it takes to get to the city. Also, beats pouring the whey down the drain.

Anyway, pictured above are some tacos made with what I think, but am far from certain, is meat that would be the porcine equivalent of skirt steak. It's the flap of meat often found attached to the concave side of spare ribs. Here there was a nice piece of the stuff in the odd parts portion of the pig meat box, and it just screamed "fajita me!" There was a little silver skin like stuff on one side of the meat, but trimming proved next to impossible because of the thinness and fragility of the flap of meat, so I just seasoned with salt and pepper and searing in a scorching hot pan. About one and half minutes per side and it was nice and charred.

After the pork flap was cooked, I sliced across the grain and put the pieces on some homemade tacos garnished with Snake Hill Farm onion, parsley (The Basketeria), and raclette cheese (The Cheese Shop). Some lime and hot sauce too. Not bad.

I couldn't resist posting a picture of this knife I got to help me through the pig.
Sorry about that. But, if you're looking for a good price on some basic restaurant supply goods in Cle, Dubick is practically giving these kinds of things away through March.

And finally, if you're squeamish stop scrolling. This one's not too bad, but I could see how someone would rather just stop now.

Half a pig head, an ear, tail, trotter, garlic, onion, thyme, bay leaf, and peppercorns (some carrot and parsnip was added later). The ultimate two for one. This yielded a wonderful pork stock, and also some delicious meat that is currently being formed into a fat sausage shape in plastic wrap. Both the meat and stock will make appearances here soon.

So far so good.