Saturday, April 11, 2009

Monsoon and Collins Pub - more Mangalitsa-sired Pork

I dropped off more Mangalitsa-sired pork at Monsoon. Look for belly on their menu!

Also, Chef Eric Wood came by and bought more Mangalitsa-sired pork. He got another sirloin end of the loin - eseentially a piece with (in beef terminology) the short loin and sirloin.

He explained that after taking on the tenderloin, he boned-out the remainder and cut it into steaks. Some of them were very fatty (about 1/3 fat) - but his customers really liked them. Adventurous diners who eat properly finished lard-type (or in the case of mangalitsa-sired pigs, 50% lard-type) can really enjoy themselves: they get tasty meat and some extraordinary fat.

Strategically, Mangalitsa producers need to get people eating (and chefs serving) the non-obvious cuts. There's very few pork chops and tenderloin on a Mangalitsa or Mangalitsa-sired pig. But done right, a high-quality Mangalitsa provides a tremendous bounty.

I'm hoping that in the next year, we'll see Chef Stockner in the USA on the East Coast, getting American chefs up to speed on Mangalitsa. If you'd like to be informed about when he visits, so you can attend his using a Mangalitsa-in-a-restaurant class, please send me an email. He's been using Mangalitsa pigs in his kitchen for years. He knows how to wring every penny out of them.

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