I'm Nick Solares, host of The Meat Show. We
are here in Red Hook, Brooklyn and I'm
here to eat succulent pork steak. It's a
very unique cut that nobody else is
serving, so I knew that I had to come out
and see it. Beyond that though, the person
who runs this restaurant is a very good
friend of mine who I knew from the 90s
when she was a hot rock and roll
East Village chick. Well she's retired
from that lifestyle, she's out in Red
Hook now and she's running one of the
great restaurants of the neighborhood.
Before we eat the steak, we're actually
going to visit the butcher thar prepares
it, which is Fleischer's in Red Hook, one
of the premier butchers serving all-
natural meats to the restaurants of the
area. Then we're going to go to Grindhaus
and try the steak.
So just to give the viewers a sense of
proportion and direction, this is the
front of the animal, this is the rib
section, the loin, sirloin, and then
the ham. "Right." We are dealing with the
ham area. "Right, the back legs."
So tell me about the pigs that we're
gonna work with. "They're from J&D Farms,
we do Berkshire, Duroc, Landrace, and
Tamworth, so a lot of old English
breeds. We're really hearty, have really
flavorful meat, good fat cover." So tell me,
how did this get to Grindhaus? "A lot of
people obviously want pork chops and lot
of people have them on the menu, but she
wanted something different that had a
lot of flavor, that had tenderness but
also a nice texture, and we sent her some
of these and she fell in love with them."
Allow me madam. "No, no!" My mother really
would never forgive me. I mean that.
She hold it against me more than all
the pork I eat!
"Ok Mr. Solares." Thank you very much, dear.
Look at that. "One pig steak for you. This is
our finished and plated pig steak,
succulent pig steak on the menu." So
really you're probably one of the few
restaurants— "I think we're actually
the only one as far as I know
that is getting this
particular cut, and I'm really
stoked about that." What was it, when you
first put on the menu, was it like an
educational challenge to get people —
"It was but I think
just using the term 'pig steak',
it's just kind of like, 'Pig steak? Well,
what's a pig steak?'" So here we go, the
moment of truth. Succulent pig steak at
Grindhaus, going in for the first bite.
What a great piece of meat, mmm. It's
somewhere between ham and steak, I'd say.
You're getting a bit of gaminess from
the leg meat, but it's got a very sort of
clean porky flavor to sort of balance it
out .of it so a very nice piece of meat
right here hmm i suppose i should eat
some of these other things because the
chef has gone to great trouble to cook
them mmm it's pretty good for not being
me let's talk about the about the color
of this growing up people when I was
like you have to cook pull all the way
through and this was a USDA requirement
that you have to serve corporate 160
they rescinded that probably about five
years ago and the result is that we are
discovering the pork had way more flavor
than we ever imagined and case in point
this cut right here has a very
snake-like application and I'm talking
like a piece of beef steak almost even
though it has those very gentle sweet
porky notes it's got a real nice bite to
it just try pork medium it's not going
to kill you and it will actually make
your life better make it my life at
right now so a couple of takeaways one
don't be afraid to your cork medium
medium rare the other one is don't be
afraid to look beyond the standard coxon
I think this is a perfect case in point
this has every positive attribute of a
expensive like rib chop or loin chop or
a porterhouse but it's probably I mean
if you're gonna get this much loin meat
it would probably be twice the price so
what I'm suggesting is that there are so
many wonderful things to eat on the hog
don't get caught up on being high on the
hog and you know look beyond those
obvious cuts and you will find a Nirvana
on a plate that's it from this succulent
pork steak a grindhouse where Aaron
Norris dolls this out five nights a week
encourage you to get down here and try
it for yourself and we'll see you on the
next episode of the meat show then
roasted in the oven
it gets to be cooked at about 400
degrees for an hour so until it becomes
supremely crispy just