Hog to blog: How George McMillan breaks down dinner

I knew I was in heaven the moment I saw a severed pig’s head on a sheet pan in the kitchen at FoodBar restaurant on recent February morning. Chef/owner George McMillan III was going to walk me through the process of turning a half-hog into menu items.

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.

Chef George McMillan III

In an upcoming issue of Birmingham Magazine, I will focus on the end product, the dishes on the FoodBar menu that feature or are flavored by these pigs. This blog goes behind the scenes with McMillan and a pig better left unnamed.

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.

Boston butts come from the shoulder, but McMillan uses most of this shoulder meat for sausage. Some of the fat trimmings also will be rendered into flavorful cooking oil. The ham is destined for roasts and braises. The idea of curing and air-drying a hind leg like prosciutto is appealing, but McMillan says he can’t tie up the cooler space while it ages.

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.