A professional review of Kurobuta Pork
A professional review of Kurobuta Pork
December 20,2010
is a culinary instructor from Boston Massachusetts. She has graciously allowed me to post a review of Berkshire (Kurobuta) pork from her blog. Thank you Helen!
Pigepiphany — noun — 1. Tasting real pork for the first time. 2. A realization that 99% of pork sold in the US is complete crap.
American pork is bred for leanness to meet consumers’ unquenchable thirst for all meats to look and taste like chicken. Nothing against chicken, but people’s obsession with it is absurd. If American food industry could breed chicken in fish, pork, beef, and lamb flavors, they would. Since food science hasn’t reached such heights yet, we settle for “chicken of the sea” tuna and the “other white meat” pork.
I’ve been experimenting with pork chops from Whole Foods for the past month with terrible results. Brining, marinating, high heat, low heat… nothing worked. They came out dense, with a taste of salt and sugar, not pig. Just as I was about to swear to never cook another pork chop in my life, helpful readers of this blog and my fellow chowhounds from the home cooking board came to my rescue. The opinion was unanimous: “It’s not you; it’s pork!”
“What you need is Berkshire or Kurobuta pork,” the chowhounds told me. Big foreign words to describe something as simple as a pork chop make me nervous. But curiosity got the best of me and I Googled for Savenor’s phone number. Surely, a butcher where Julia Child used to shop had to carry it.
“No, we don’t have it,” the Savenor’s butcher told me, “but our pork is excellent.”
“It is fatty?” I asked.
“Oh no – it’s beautifully lean!”
Ok guys. The words “beautifully lean” would be a compliment for a model, not for a pig.
Try number two — John Dewar’s. By now I felt like a desperate drug addict calling a dealer.
“Do you have Kurobuta pork?”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“$20”
“Fine.
I’ll be there on Wednesday.”
You’ll love it!” said the butcher at John Dewar’s as he cut me 2 ribs of a pork roast, “It doesn’t even taste like pork.” Hmm, doesn’t taste like pork? That was the whole reason I was in this crème de la crème (and price de la price) of Boston butcher shops, paying $20/pound for a pork chop. I could be eating bluefin sashimi or foie gras for this price, but no, I had to go on this ridiculous pork chop quest. What I was hoping he meant was that it didn’t taste like the “other white meat.”
For comparison, I decided to get their regular pork chop for $6/Lb.
Regular pork chop ($6/Lb)
Kurobuta pork chop ($20/Lb)
“Are they from different places?” I asked.
“No. Both from Iowa, but different breeds.”
“Should I brine or marinade them?”
“No, our pork doesn’t need any of that.”
“Even the regular chop?”
“Oh yeah! With supermarket pork, I’d recommend it, but with ours…”
I don’t know why I always ask them for advice. I guess I need that extra reassurance with meat. They’ve told me stuff before that backfired, and different butchers at Dewar’s have given me conflicting advice.
I agree with the Dewar’s guy on brining. It’s really a cheap and dirty trick to enhance otherwise mediocre meats. I love how consumers are all up in arms about “enhanced pork,” so they buy Whole Foods’ untreated pork only to bring it home and brine it. How do you think pork gets “enhanced”? Marinade is a whole other thing though – it doesn’t make the pork spongy and can impart flavors other than just salt and sugar. Not to mask the flavor of the meat, I settled on a simple marinade of rosemary, garlic, lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper.
After a couple of hours, I fired up the grill, dried off my chops, and grilled them – first on the bone side to melt the fat and crisp it, and then on the flat sides. As soon as they browned, I turned down the heat to low until the chops reached 125F in the center. It’s not as undercooked as you’d think since the temperature went up another 10-15 degrees while they were resting. The only thing I did differently this time was keep the grill uncovered. This allowed the chops to brown nicely, while keeping the ambient temperature of the grill lower. The higher the temperature, the more the meat toughens, but the lower the temperature, the less the meat browns and less flavor develops. Man, and people say cooking fish is hard!
Regular chop grilled
Kurobuta chop grilled
After a 5-7 minute rest for the chops, during which they posed for pictures, we finally got to take our first ever bite of Kurobuta pork. Oh my! This is the part where words escape me. You didn’t need a knife. You didn’t even need a fork. The only reason you needed teeth was to get the pieces into your mouth. From then on, they just melted away. If this was a wine, I’d say it had a nice long finish of a Burgundy Grand Cru, but instead of truffles and violets, it tasted like a platonic ideal of a pig — more flavorful than ribs, more tender than a tenderloin, more tasty than any pork I’ve ever had.
Inside of a regular chop
Inside of a Kurobuta chop
Eating a regular pork chop after this revelation was like drinking Two Buck Chuck. Ok, maybe not that bad. Whole Foods chops are like Two Buck Chuck. Dewar’s are like a $10 Australian Shiraz — slightly better than the supermarket chops, but still of the “other white meat” garden variety. We took a few bites for the sake of science and left it at that.I must confess that the reason I undertook this experiment was to prove to myself once and for all that pork chops are not worth cooking and that paying $20 for pork is complete insanity. In that respect I failed miserably. That pork chop was worth a bowl of bluefin tuna; it was worth a slice of foie gras terrine; it was even worth an hour in the gym.
source: http://christiansenshogheaven.blogspot.com/2009/04/yummy-berkshire-kurobuta-pork.html
Are these articles useful for enhancing your wine and dine experience in the Philippines. Do they also help you with travel, leisure, vacation, dining out, nightlife and other leisure activities plans in Philippines? Yats Restaurant hopes to provide you with ample information so you can plan your trips to Pampanga Angeles City Clark Freeport Zone whether you are travelling from Manila or other Asian countries such as Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore, Malaysia or Korea.
Restaurant reservations in Philippines, planning of menu, selection of wine for dinner and booking a private function and event in Angeles City Clark Freeport Zone can all be handled. Yats Restaurant and Wine Bar has been regarded by many to be the premier restaurant north of Manila Philippines. Its 3000-line award-winning restaurant wine list has kept many wine lovers happy dining in this restaurant in Angeles City Clark Philippines for over a decade.
Yats Restaurant and Wine Bar was built by Hong Kong-based Yats International in 2000 to provide a world-class fine dining restaurant, business meeting facilities and venues for private dinners and functions in Pampanga Angeles City Clark Freeport Zone. Pampanga Angeles City Clark Philippines was selected for this restaurant because of safety, clean air, absence of traffic and proximity to Manila and Subic.
For comments, inquiries and reservations, email Restaurant@Yats-International.com or call these numbers:
(045) 599-5600 0922-870-5178 0917-520-4401 ask for Ernest or Pedro.
Http://www.YatsRestaurant.com
Getting to this fine dining restaurant of Angeles City Clark Freeport Zone Pampanga Philippines
How to get to this fine-dining restaurant in Clark Philippines? Once you get to Clark Freeport, go straight until you hit Mimosa. After you enter Mimosa, stay on the left on Mimosa Drive, go past the Holiday Inn and Yats Restaurant (green top, independent 1-storey structure) is on your left. Just past the Yats Restaurant is the London Pub.
Here is a list of restaurants in Angeles City that offer good private rooms for business dining and meetings. Yats Restaurant and Wine Bar tops the list of the best restaurants in Angeles City and Clark Pampanga. This popular fine dining restaurant in Pampanga is located inside Mimosa leisure estate in Philippines Clark Freeport. This restaurant is within minutes from the famous Mimosa Golf course as well as the casinos in Mimosa Clark. . Next time you travel north to Pampanga, don’t forget to wine and dine at this famous Clark restaurant which is located in Mimosa Leisure Estate of Clark Air Base.
Some of the good Clark Air Base restaurants offer a unique dining experience that is not commonly found in even the best restaurants in Manila. Some of the fine restaurants in Pampanga are found inside Clark. Business executives discover that the good restaurants in Clark Pampanga offer some of the best places for business meetings also. The Magnum Room wine bar of Yats Restaurant is one of the best places to drink wine and also to relax and unwind with friends. Visitors to Clark Philippines rarely pass up in the opportunity to dine at one of the best restaurants in Pampanga.
