I ventured out to the grocery store to pick up a loaf of bread to make sandwiches for lunch's at work yesterday and what did I see on the front page of the flyer??? Boneless pork loin rib or sirloin halves for $1.99/lb which is a phenomenal deal (3.116 kg's for $13.62), but who needs a 6+ lb piece of pork for one meal? Maybe a large family or summer bbq for you and twelve of your friends. Jay Eatz sure had no intentions of preparing the whole piece in one go, so what next?
I pulled out some tricks from my butcher days, grabbed my knifes, butcher string and a couple freezer bags. Now I recommend any home cook or bbq enthusiasts to have 4 knives in there collection.
1. Pairing Knife
2. Chef Knife
3. Boning Knife
4. Steak Knife
and 5. Sharpening Steel (#5 is not really a knife but I am adding it to the list)
Knife #1 and #2 are not pictured, but the small blade is knife #3, the machete looking one is #4 and the one with the black handle is #5.
The first thing I always do when I buy meat is to give it a good rinse under cold running water. I do this for two reasons, one it washes all the meat juices off and two the 3 second rule is alive and well at many establishments (especially when one drops a $90+ piece of filet mignon on the ground).
Step two is to trim off the excess fat on the top of the pork loin. I find a good rule of thumb is to leave 1/4 inch of fat on the meat, this will add flavour during the cooking process and will remain edible and easy to cut through.
I pulled out some tricks from my butcher days, grabbed my knifes, butcher string and a couple freezer bags. Now I recommend any home cook or bbq enthusiasts to have 4 knives in there collection.
1. Pairing Knife
2. Chef Knife
3. Boning Knife
4. Steak Knife
and 5. Sharpening Steel (#5 is not really a knife but I am adding it to the list)
Knife #1 and #2 are not pictured, but the small blade is knife #3, the machete looking one is #4 and the one with the black handle is #5.
The first thing I always do when I buy meat is to give it a good rinse under cold running water. I do this for two reasons, one it washes all the meat juices off and two the 3 second rule is alive and well at many establishments (especially when one drops a $90+ piece of filet mignon on the ground).
Step two is to trim off the excess fat on the top of the pork loin. I find a good rule of thumb is to leave 1/4 inch of fat on the meat, this will add flavour during the cooking process and will remain edible and easy to cut through.
Then I determined I wanted to end up with a couple of roasts and some thick chops for the bbq. I scored the top of the fat to judge the thickness of my chops before committing to the slice with my steak knife.
I could have kept going with the chops and cut the larger piece pictured above into more chops, sliced almost through the first cut and all the way through the second cut making butter fly pork chops or sliced it thin for fast fry pork chops. I decided to tie the larger piece in the background into a roast. Now tying a butcher's knot is not that hard to do but is hard to explain in writing. Check out this link from youtube, it's a solid example.
I was then left with a boneless pork sirloin portion. I could have sliced this into cutlets which makes for excellent schnitzel or boneless pork sirloin steaks. I decided to use this for a roast as well.
I simply repeated the tying process and had another roast (i tied from west to east as pictured). So for a little over $13 i have a pork loin center cut roast that would have been around $18, three thick bbq pork loin center cut chops that would have been around $9 and 3 lb boneless pork shoulder roast that would have cost around $13.
If you are more into the pork chops and less into the roasts I would recommend buying the other half of the loin, the rib portion.
If you are more into the pork chops and less into the roasts I would recommend buying the other half of the loin, the rib portion.
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