- Brent, where are we for today's episode of Prime Time?
- We find ourselves in Hudson, New York.
- [Ben] Oh.
- We are at Fish and Game,
where they source all of their ingredients locally.
- [Ben] We will be working with Executive Chef Kevin
to make a delicious porchetta, and we will only leave
this fire long enough to make this video.
Please enjoy.
- [Ben] What are we doing with this beauty today?
- The end all here is to make a nice,
tight, rolled porchetta.
This is not on the menu.
We like to do this for some larger gatherings,
something where we're guaranteed to sell the whole thing.
It's like the Italian prime rib.
- Yeah. - You know?
It's not something you can stop half way through.
So, the first step, obviously,
would be to score this and butterfly it,
because what we wanna do is create a lot of surface area.
We have also brined this.
Nothing crazy, just enough to get in there,
add a little moisture.
- How long has it been brining for?
- 24 hours.
- Why don't we start off--
just to moisten the flesh a little bit.
So this is the cider that we make.
- I've never seen this before, where'd you get this hot tip?
- Just makes sense, you know, you want--
- Just makes sense!
- You want some moisture, you want something to help,
you know, stick all the herbs and spices
and components to the product.
Add a little fennel pollen here.
- [Ben] Wow, yep.
- This fennel is from our garden,
on Fish and Game Road.
I'm gonna give you the thyme, if you wanna do the rosemary.
- Oh, thank god I got the rosemary, not the thyme.
- Yeah.
- So, we have some sage, some thyme, some rosemary.
- [Ben] Cool, all good things.
- Thank you mucho.
(pestle clacking)
Just fine enough so that, really, the peppercorns
aren't gonna get stuck in your teeth.
- [Brent] Tell us the Fish & Game story.
- Manhattan, as you all know, is not the easiest
place to do business, and--
- You don't say.
- So, we decided to try something new, we both,
you know, kind of craved the country.
You know, thinking that you'd come to the country,
and magically the whole restaurant life would disappear.
- And then you forget that you're just
opening another business?
- Yeah, and you're like, oh this is just like
opening every restaurant I've ever opened.
A total nightmare.
You couldn't just call anyone and get something.
If you needed a pan, like,
it was going down to the city to get it.
I think that's what really forced us to be
super local, just really outta necessity.
Some of this thyme, rosemary, sage.
You wanna rub it in, there's some scoring on the inside,
just to create a little bit more surface area.
More room for the flavors to get in
and oils to penetrate the pork.
- This is a whole belly,
you said it's for the private dining room,
about how many people do you think this is gonna serve?
- This is gonna serve more than 14,
carved tableside up in front of the guests.
- Gotta do it tableside.
- Stays nice and moist, it doesn't get dried out.
- And it looks cool, yeah.
- We have the farce, this is--
actually happens to be the shoulder.
Use it as glue, kinda hold the pig together.
Helps- helps as it starts rendering out,
and shrinking a little bit.
- [Ben] Okay.
- It helps fill in that- that void.
Use pretty much the same ingredients that you see here,
there's sage, rosemary, thyme.
- Awesome- I've never thought about this,
but building- building on the flavors that you're
already using makes so much sense.
- Why porchetta?
What was the idea behind this dish?
(Kevin sighs)
- You know, just something that's festive, you know,
a lot of times this is a Christmas tradition
in Italy where they do the porchetta.
Sure, you can do this at home,
but it's a lot of separate ingredients to pull together.
- [Ben] It's a lot of skill, too.
- [Brent] Really need a reason.
- I love making porchettas, porchettas are fun,
they taste so good.
- [Kevin] You're doing a really good job.
- [Ben] Thanks, boss.
Gonna- Rammer Jammer?
- [Kevin] Yep!
- [Brent] Classic Rammer Jammer.
(energetic music)
- Is a porchetta!
Christmas is just later this year.
- This is not a oven, this is not a raging fire,
how long is this gonna take?
- Probably gonna take about five hours.
- Oh, that's it?
Yeah, okay. - That's no time at all.
- A lot of that is helped by this,
which is a big, cast iron piece which helps radiate heat.
- [Brent] Gotcha.
- [Kevin] And keep it even.
- [Ben] Do you ever have this going while service is going?
Just so people will see this and they're just like,
what the hell, like-- - All- all the--
all the- all the time.
- [Ben] Great.
- And it's a great way to cook,
moving the juices around, gets wafted by smoke,
we get to baste it with nice pork fat.
- Yeah, no one's gonna get mad about the drippings.
- Right?
- Just like, here's how we do things, we take the-
we take our time, like, we use good product,
we do this ourselves, like, it's all right here.
- You know, I think we're very authentic cooks,
and we love product, and we love geeking out on it.
So, we use this really as an extension of our kitchen.
They're complaining that it's too hot over here,
(laughter) but I need this done
in ten minutes. - Yeah.
- You know? (laughter)
Which happens all the time.
To me, it's like, it's authentic and it's fun and it's real,
and there's not many things you can say
about that in life these days.
- [Brent] Totally.
- Yeah.
- We got about five hours, we can prep the garnish.
- Woo-hoo!
- [Kevin] Let's go equal parts maple--
- [Ben] Where's this maple coming from?
- [Kevin] This actually comes from
Fish and Game Farm as well.
- You know where I got Brent?
Fish and Game Farm.
- Nice!
- Yeah, yeah, found him--
picked him right out of the ground myself.
- He- he growed up great.
- He was a little under ripe, but.
(laughter)
- Hey.
- And this is our fish sauce that we make.
Basically, salting fish and throwing it in a--
we use bourbon, and just stick it in a barrel,
top it off with water and come back to it in two years.
- That is--
- It's been a couple years.
- Very fishy.
- A third pork jus.
- As thick as maple syrup.
- A vinegar that we make as well.
We have some fermented chili we make ourselves, as well.
And this actually sits outside and freezes and thaws,
freezes and thaws, and it gives it a really nice complexity.
A couple spoon of salted chilies.
- [Ben] Yeah, get at her.
- And then maybe a nice heaping spoon of the shallot.
- This are all ingredients that are gonna play
so beautifully with like, pork fat.
- Exactly.
- Like, all of these marry so well.
- Salty, sweet, acid, hot. - Yeah.
Yeah.
- We like big, bold, round flavors.
We try and achieve balance.
Come in here, I'll throw this old guy down here.
(blowtorch whirs)
- [Ben] Ooooh!
We don't cook pork well-done.
- [Ben] That looks beautiful.
- [Kevin] Porchetta a la fireplace rotisserie,
with spring onion.
- Just one slice--
(nervous noise)
That's how you're gonna slice it?
You're sure?
Wow, wow.
Yep.
That's some good tasting fat.
- God, that's very good.
- That's an extremely good porchetta.
Probably shouldn't say that's better
than the ones I had in Italy.
- I gotta say, it's not often that you have
pork that you can actually cut with a butter knife.
- [Kevin] Right?
- It's that freaking tender.
The chilies and cider really shine.
Get the mouth feel, super fatty,
but really helps cut it.
- Terroir is very funny,
if it's in the same terroir
or the end of eating it,
for some reason they just always work well together.
- The thing that's like the most striking about this,
you're, like, using like seasonality, which--
most people would see as a hindrance
to being able to do what they do,
but you're using it to your benefit to like,
unlock some creativity,
because you can only use what you have in season.
And everything seems to be in service
of the pork and the fat.
Nothing is trying to like, overshadow it.
And it all just marries.
Thank you so much.
I'm gonna be thinking about that for a mo- for a while.
- Pleasure. - That's fantastic.