Tag Archives: Pork

London: St John (pork, tarragon)

27 Oct

I got taken out (lucky me) to a special birthday dinner earlier this year in London at St John (at the more cheerfully informal St John Bread and Wine space– a bustling open room without tablecloths and various daily pork, greens, and cheese plates coming out whenever they’re ready). I have a huge food crush on them now:

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A plate of simply-named “lamb, bread, green sauce” was one of my favorite dishes in London– the sauce was a mix of a powerful dose of tarragon, mint?, other soft green herbs, maybe capers? And the “courgettes, lentils, yogurt, zucchini” (center of the image above) was another dish we both remember months later (also with tarragon). Lower left above was fried pig skin strips with a tarragon(!) aioli, and there was another crumbled pork and fennel dish I wrote down but can’t remember. All washed down with the intense, earthy St John Claret.

And for dessert, a plate of cheese instead of sweets. The Tymsboro(?– scribbled note in notebook) goat cheese via Neals Yard was euphoria-inducingly good– soft, salty, with a slow-burn spicy/funky/goaty rind.

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Mission Chinese: Pork Jowl, Radish, Mint, Anise Peanuts!

8 May

Quick takeout from Mission Chinese while packing for a trip, and it was intensely, all-consumingly delicious (and all consumed). Stir-fried pork jowl with radishes, mint, fermented black beans, and vinegar-anise-garlic peanuts. 

Butchers and Beers

14 Feb

If you don’t want to see pictures of hog butchering, stop reading now.

Yesterday I went to a combination beer release party (Almanac Beer’s Winter Wit, with kara kara oranges, blood oranges, and ginger from local farms– they pointed out that while Wit is typically a summer beer, winter is citrus season in our neck of the woods… I liked it quite a bit, as well as the High Water Brewing No Boundaries IPA), pork dinner (shoulder with some sort of spicy gravy was my favorite, followed by the fatty pork-and-beer sausage and chicharrones), and hog butchering demonstration by Ryan Farr of 4505 Meats.

While I’ve always liked looking at the “cuts of meat diagrams” in an old Joy Of Cooking, and have been part of various whole animal roasts, this was the first time I’d watched up close as someone broke down an entire animal and pointed out the name of each cut as it was split apart. It really put the shape of the various lines of fat in bacon in context.