The food and history lover in me always has been fascinated
by how our meals go from farm to table (all too often these days, via
factories). Conversations with McMillan at his Cahaba Heights restaurant led to
an invitation to watch him break down one of the Duroc/Berkshire pigs he regularly
buys from the legendary pork producer, Henry Fudge.
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| Chef George McMillan III |
McMillan orders a half-hog every 4-6 weeks, about 150 pounds of meat, fat and bone. (He also orders a side of beef every six weeks.) The
initial breakdown separates the side into the head, belly, front quarter and
hind quarter. All that’s missing is the innards and the squeal. “We’re thinking
about what we’re going to do with the tail,” McMillan said. “We’ll figure out
something.”
Dealing with carcasses instead of individual cuts makes good
business sense and allows a chef to be more creative, McMillan said. Everything
gets utilized, from center-plate chops and roasts to scraps for sausage, bones
for stock and fat for myriad uses.
Lacking the power of a kitchen band saw, McMillan gets quite
a workout using a hacksaw on the heavy-duty bones. “Ever since I touched a
blade (when he worked) at Hot and Hot, I have a strong respect for band saws,”
he said wryly, demonstrating that all joints on each finger, fortunately, are
still attached.
The hog head can be made into headcheese, an addictively
wonderful, meaty and gelatinous flavor-bomb, prized when it appears on any
charcuterie board. When the head is done, McMillan reduces the cooking liquid to
enhance the natural gelatin that will bind the bits of tender cheek, tongue and
other face meat when they are molded together.
McMillan has other plans for our head, rich meat sauces for
ravioli. Either way, the cooking process starts the same: Fill a huge pot with a
mirepoix of onion, carrots and celery; the pig’s head; a seasoning sachet; white
wine and enough cold water to cover all but the tip of the snout. It will cook
for three hours; the tip that it’s done is when the skin starts to pull away
from the exposed snout, indicating that the submerged meat is falling-apart
tender.
The cooked head cools a bit before the meat is removed.
“It’s like pulling bubblegum out of quicksand,” McMillan said. “It’s a sticky
process.” McMillan’s dogs usually wind up with the ears.
McMillan considers Fudge Farm pork bellies to be special.
“It’s always a treat when we get one. They’re big bellies that provide good
bacon, big enough to wrap around our sausage-stuffed rabbit loin.”
The skin is carefully trimmed from the belly for use as
cracklings. Sometimes, McMillan reserves part of the belly to roast, but today it
is exclusively reserved for bacon. The trimmed belly is rubbed down with
generous mixture of salt, sugar and spice, cured for five days then rinsed. His
neighbors at New York Bucher Shop generously allow use of their large smoker.
Chops will be one of the center-plate byproducts. McMillan slices
the meat before sawing through bone to separate each serving. Chine
bones are hacked off for use in stocks. The saw also comes in handy when he
separates a single trotter and two huge hocks from each leg. They will be
smoked and used to flavor beans and greens.
The first rule of sausage making is chill. Everything –
meat, grinder and storage containers – must be kept cold to avoid liquefying the
fat. “You want to do it quickly, working in batches,” McMillan said.
McMillan cuts his trimmings to a uniform size for the
grinder. Added fat comes from different parts of the pig, each with its own
appearance and texture. Some is thick and gnarled. Some is snowy white and
smooth. “That’s good solid white
fat," McMillan remarks. "It’s a piece of pork butter.”
A generous heap of seasoning is mixed thoroughly with the
trimmings and fat before they are cooled to near-freezing then ground and
blended with a little ice water. The pig’s lacy caul fat will encase some of
the sausage for crepinettes.
By now McMillan has gathered the stock bones, which he
roasts to boost their flavor. He will brown onions, celery and carrots in
rendered pig fat before adding the roasted bones and cold water for pork stock.
Sometimes he adds pork bones to supplement the rabbit in a game stock.
The conversion takes hours to complete. Once the mise is in
place the fun part begins, putting that pig on plates.
