bringing the people behind our food to
life now we just have the back leg the
back leg is a little bit different than
the shoulder in terms of the bones that
we’re going to take out but the Trotter
and the hawk are about the same the only
thing to know is that the Trotter is a
little harder to take off just with a
knife on the back leg there’s more
tendons holding it together so I tend to
use a saw for that but I still use my
knife to make that initial cut okay
that’s also nice Trotter it’s got lots
of gelatin and lots of marrow in there
so that’s going to make that stockpot
taste better okay and then we’re going
to take our hock off a little bit larger
than that front hock but we’re going to
do the same thing so we’re going to cut
this just like we did on the shoulder
and then we’re gonna use our saw like
that so that hock has nice meat on there
as well one thing that I wanted to note
is that when you saw bone you get a lot
of bone dust in there so you’re going to
want to get your towel wet and just kind
of wipe that off and that can attract
bacteria it’s also just doesn’t look
that good not nice to bite into just
make sure you clean that up okay so
there’s our hawk and our Trotter so now
I’m going to take before I start to
debone this I’m going to take the skin
off and usually I’ll just make a little
incision there I’m not going too deep
like that
and I’m just going to start peeling that
skin away leaving as much fat as I can
on those roasts and keep in mind that as
you cut it’s going to seem like the fat
stays closer to the skin but it actually
starts to go starts to get less deep so
like right now I’m cutting a little bit
into the meat there so I just want to
make sure that I keep pressing up
towards that skin so I’m letting all
that meat stay intact
okay so there’s one side and again you
don’t have to leave you don’t have to
take the skin off you can always leave
that on a roast but in case you don’t
like the skin I just want to show you
how how easy it is to get that off it’s
actually a good way to practice your
knife skills to practice making those
long cuts so there I got into a little
bit of meat no biggie but so you can see
kind of how that curves around okay
just want a nice piece of skin with the
USDA stamp on it
but
another piece there
there we go okay so now you can kind of
see there’s not that it’s not the same
as this back fat on the pork chop but
there’s a good half inch or a quarter
inch of fat on there so now I’m going to
take the H bone out which is this funky
little bone right there this is probably
even trickier than the shoulder blade
but it can be done anyone can do it if
they with a little bit of practice and
again you’re just using your knife
pushing against that bone and carving
around that little S shape there and one
of the funny things about this bone is
that there’s a hole right there so if
you have a meat hook you can stick your
meat hook in there and hold on to it and
then you can see there’s a bone right
there that it’s attached to actually
that’s part of the H bone and then
there’s another ball and socket joint
right there that we’re going to
disarticulate
and when in doubt I stick my fingers
where my knife can’t go so that I can
see kind of where that that bone is
curving because this bone really does
some kind of funky little tricks on you
and it’s better to stick your finger in
there than then the knife so that you
can keep those muscles all intact
I’m going to go ahead and just cut this
little scrap a fat off here that also
allows me to see what’s going on
underneath okay so now I’ve basically
revealed where that ball and socket are
so I’m going to try to stick my knife in
there if I can and again disarticulate
that tendon that’s holding it on to that
bone that leg bone so now I’ve actually
detached it and I can get my knife in
there to take it off and this is why
that flexible knife is really nice to
have because it can do turns that a
stiff knife probably couldn’t again I’m
using that whole is a little hook for my
finger
okay so that teeny tiny bone takes quite
a bit of work to get out that’s the H
bone so now we revealed that little ball
at the end of the leg bone which ends
right here so it runs just like that now
the back leg is fun to butcher once
you’ve gotten that H point out because
the seams are really obvious and what we
have here is about five small muscle
groups that all have fashio in between
it so it’s really easy to Joe even if
you don’t know what you’re doing to just
kind of use your fingers to find where
those where those seams are and you can
also use vision so you can see here
there’s the meat hits the meat right
about there
that’s actually the end of this muscle
group that’s called the top round so I
just use that line to guide me
and to basically peel this top round off
the top of the leg and all of this is
the top round as well I actually got
through that a little bit and I’m going
to make a little roast out of this
there’s that seam
so again looks like kind of a funky
piece but all you got to do is trim it
up and then tie it nicely and I would
put that in brine simple sugar and salt
brine for about a day and then I could
smoke that I could roast it and turn it
into lunch meat if I wanted to it’s a
lot of things you can do with it okay
then I’m going to find next step is to
basically do what I did on that shoulder
where I follow that bone and open up
this ham like a book I’m just cutting
around that bone I’m going to turn this
into a little roast and this is actually
something I would turn into what the
French call a new audio jam bone which
means sort of the nut of the ham I would
take this and tie it really tightly and
then I’d salt it overnight and then I
would pepper it very generously and hang
it in my basement there’s a little
floating bone there hanging in my
basement and probably for about a week
maybe a little longer until that turns
into a nice cured piece of ham really
peppery slice it thinly great piece of
charcuterie
so there’s another little ham roast
there still working on getting this bone
out but instead of trying to think of it
as getting the bone out I think of
peeling the layers of muscle off the
bone so now I just liberated this side
of the bone that meat off of that side
so now I’m going to liberate the other
side
and each of these muscles works slightly
differently so you’re going to cook them
slightly differently that’s why I like
to actually follow the scenes between
the muscles as opposed to just
willy-nilly cutting straight down and
through and I actually when I’m cutting
this bone off I’ll actually just slice
all the way down like this and the
reason is that I love making soup out of
this ham bone and the meat that’s
underneath so I just leave all of that
meat on and that makes a nice pot of
beans some people would take that all
off I leave it right on and put it in
that stockpot okay so now we have a
couple choices here and I can leave this
as one whole roast although I have a
couple of different muscle groups in
here that are going to cook slightly
differently or I can turn it into a
couple more Nuada John bones smaller
roasts like this I think probably I’m
going to turn it into two big roasts so
I’m going to find the seam here like
that these will be nice long roasts that
we can tie up and slice and make look
beautiful
we’ll just square this off this can go
into sausage meat so that’s a nice
little two-person sweetheart roast right
there and then this we could turn into
two Sweetheart roasts I’m going to leave
it whole just square off these ends so
it looks pretty and that’ll be a nice
ham roast as well we could also make ham
steaks out of this so basically we just
slice about two inches like so and take
that layer of fat off
and then we would basically butterfly it
so it slides almost to the end but not
quite and then we’d open it up like this
and pound it and we have a nice little
ham steak okay we could do that with
this whole piece but I’m going to leave
it whole as a rose because it looks so
beautiful just as is so now I have a few
scraps that I can throw into my sausage
pile I’ve got fat I’ve got my stock
bones I’ve got my four major ham roasts
I’ve got the skin that I can put on
leaner pieces of meat or I can throw
into the stockpot I’ve got my pork chops
here I got my loin roast over here we
have our trotters floating around and
our hocks more skin we’ve got our
beautiful shoulder roast which we can
turn into sausage meat if we want to or
leave as a roast we’ve got our lovely
Coppa my favorite part of the entire pig
we’ve got a little bit of sausage meat
we’ll put that in our sausage pile more
bones our picnic we’ve got our ribs for
stock and then our fresh belly and our
bacon belly depending on how much meat
you eat if you do let’s say every dinner
you have meat as your main course this
would probably last for a family of four
about a month or two but if you eat like
I do as a meat-eater which is using meat
more as a accent in dishes versus a main
course this would last me for almost a
year so I do a lot more curing and
brining and then I do cooking fresh meat
and that makes it last a lot longer
I have always loved pigs and as soon as
I could get a pig of my own I got two
and started to breed them