welcome friends welcome to the kitchen and today I have my friend Jaime who is
a butcher author educator all those things all of those things yeah and we
have a side of hog that we are going to break down that's right what can you
tell me about this pig this pig was raised on a small family farm outside of
Stratford okay and it was raised to a weight of just under about 300 pounds is
what they raised kind of like commercial weighted pigs out to and it ended up
dressing out at about just over 200 pounds okay and it's so it's slaughtered
in a provincial slaughterhouse so it is great do they great no actually they
don't great pork at all they're just killing and the stamps provide us with
evidence that it was actually killed with an Ontario approved facility so
pork doesn't receive a grading y doesn't receive a green it's just not something
that the meat industry ever deemed necessary the only meat that is grated
this beef lamb poultry pork none of it's grated huh I did not know that so
there's this huge sliding scale of quality I guess you know I mean listen
beef grading doesn't tell us the end-all to be all to if that animal was raised
properly or if it ate a good diet or it was outside or indoors none of that it
doesn't tell us any of that just tells you marbling exactly it's a marbled
score okay right okay so we don't have that important so we've got this pig
half a pig half a hog laying in front of us and you do butchering classes where
you teach people how to break it down yep where do you start in your class and
we'll just go through it that way so what we do is we go over a basic anatomy
and I can easily point that out we've got a head on side of pork okay right
that doesn't work into the primals of the animal for some reason they decided
that the head is not a primal so but there's so much good stuff in that yeah
and we're certainly gonna get to it okay yeah so great the four primals are
actually kind of marked by these four stamps so we've got our shoulder ah
we've got our loin our belly and our hand is that on purpose yes
so the abattoir knows that if they're not sending it out as a side then the
next step would be to send it out in those primals okay and then as a level
of not only traceability but I think peace of mind for the people that are on
the receiving end of the product so at the butcher shop or the
strong that's right they know that it's been inspected exactly I mean listen and
then it can get further process down and those stamps become irrelevant but then
the packaging that the pork gets shipped out in and then itself has a stamp on
the box okay so they're covering all the bases well and I really I really like
seeing this that that's the farm that's right yeah so the information that they
provided us is you know what these guys go above and beyond because we don't
always have access to the information we might have the weights but they have
specifically mentioned that it is an A B F so antibiotic-free okay side of pork
as well to the side weight the whole weight and then the farm that it was
produced at cool yeah so let's start breaking it down great where we go let's
take the head off excellent yeah do you know what I'll do this one just because
it can be a little bit of a tricky one to do okay but I will certainly be
putting you to work throughout the process excellent I'm gonna run around
to the other side of the camera and do a close-up okay so I'm just gonna go right
behind the ear in this deep crevice and I'm just gonna make a squared off cut
all the way down through the gel okay so and then what I'm looking for is what's
called the Atlas joint and that's the joint that connects the head to the to
the body sometimes it's a little bit hard to find and this might be a little
bit something that people may or may not want to see but the simple fact is
sometimes you got to get in a little bit down and dirty in the butchery process
in order to get the head off okay so this is the head of the pig if
that last bit kind of grossed you out a little bit it's part of the meat it's
part of the process you have to accept that that is part of the process that's
right um so the head has a lot of stuff on it I'm excited to get to this but
we'll do that in another episode so I put this to the side okay yep what's up
next okay so this is where I'm gonna need
your help because what we're gonna do is we're actually going to flip the whole
carcass over so we're looking at the inside of the carcass okay so a few
different things going on here that we can just talk about before we start
dismantling it because we've got two things that I think are a value to us
I'm already excited yeah I am already leaf lard that's right
that's gonna be one of the things that we take out actually so when the carcass
is warm and they've eviscerated it meaning they've taken out all the
insides yeah this fat kind of just lies right here on the belly so what they do
is after the animals been eviscerated they just kind of peel the fat and they
let it sit and after the animal chills down the carcass chills down overnight
it kind of like solidifies and more of like a cylindrical shape so then we've
got our leaf fat there so it is valuable and to be kept and used for later use
and then we've also got a kidney here so I've seen this before why do they leave
the kidney in the carcass so I like to think and I could probably be corrected
by multitude of people out there but because they do an incision in the
kidney and they're looking for any type of like that's an inspection
that's an inspection mark so they're looking for any type of like red light
that would leave them want to expect the carcass even further okay right so I
like to think of it as peace of mind but I also know that this is like a really
tasty part too so it's twofold for me what do you do
with the kidney so the kidneys can be I mean all sorts of things right so you
can you can just kind of boil them you can take the membrane off there's also a
membrane on the inside here that we can take out if we cut the kidney in half
and then I can get chopped up and put in like your meat pies it can be ground
into the ground meat yeah I mean there's all sorts of things cool yeah so what
I'm gonna do is just grab the leaf lard and then just pull it back towards the
ham and it'll just pull right out yeah if it's attached to that kidney which it
shouldn't shouldn't be too big of a problem for you there we go there it is
so you render this down yeah and it's amazing for all kinds of things it's
amazing for deep frying it's amazing for making pastry that's right pastry is
incredible with this so this is this is fantastic we will make use of this yeah
sure I'll put that in with the head and then the kidney which is attached to the
carcass you can just take the knife and just cut it off where it kind of meets
that what's up yep then we're good easy one kidney so presumably the other
kidneys on the other half that's right okay yeah for sure
okay so what we do now is we break it up into the four primals and
we already kind of talked about that a little bit before so the first one we're
gonna do is we're gonna take off the back ham okay okay and I know that you
have plans for said ham so what we're gonna do is we're gonna leave it in its
most natural shape I'm gonna try and make prosciutto so come on back to see
if that happens yeah oh I would be so excited to see the
process like a year-long process though yeah exactly so you'll have to still
have to stay tuned for that yeah okay so what we're gonna do is we're gonna be
looking for our marker that we'd like to use and I'm looking for this H bone okay
there's public bone right here so it almost kind of looks like what's what's
the most likeness to this like a comma yeah let's use that as our mark so
roughly about an inch in to the carcass from the head of the H bone we're gonna
make a mark and we're just gonna take our knife we're just gonna trace a line
like so okay okay so you can go ahead and do that okay so better an inch in
yeah and I just trace the mark like that that looks great okay so now let's take
the hand saw and because we've traced that line we can follow that line and I
need you to keep the saw as horizontal as possible okay and you're just gonna
need to make a few passes until you get through the bone yep keep the saw
horizontal and just follow the line the bite is on the push meaning that's
where the teeth are running okay yeah and it won't take very much effort and
then your serve that's it so that's through the backbone that's it yep cool
done suck done with the saw yeah we'll use the larger knife and we'll just
finish off that kind and so it's the same just it's your specific motion that
you're supposed to use with the knife ah well just a long fluid passes I think if
if I find people are just making small nicks then they get wood you know it's
like a shingling effect and we're just looking for a nice ass there's your ham
so this cool it's a little bit daunting oh please I think the I think the
biggest thing is actually just having a big enough bin to put it in I think I've
got it covered so awesome just in case everybody so
this is the bone that we were pointing to earlier yep
so that bone actually is something that I'm gonna want to remove for you to get
it protrude already I don't know if that's something you want to tackle now
or we'll tackle that in the next video okay we'll talk about we'll talk about
prepping this specifically for prosciutto sounds good okay perfect oh
dang you just put it right under that top great okay so what's next is the
shoulder and I'll type of the shoulder there's a few different steps in there
that need to kind of okay we need to go through an order of operations so I'll
just go ahead and do that so what I like to do on the shoulder is I'll count in
the first four ribs okay and by no means is this the gospel of
how to break down an animal right like there's a million in one ways to do this
so when you bring that up I know that I've got a worldwide audience mm-hmm
are there differences country to country so the United States to Canada Canada
the United States to say England or places in Europe where they have a
different style of butchery I would say that North America as well as like
Australia Ireland and the UK Scotland they all share similarities in the way
that they butcher okay so we we certainly adopted a lot of their methods
I would say once you get into different cultures like maybe Spain and France I
know they do a lot more seeming Odle whole muscles but there's different cut
charts that are available online that you could certainly research that again
this is one way within the framework of like a more North America no cutting
right okay so because going into this with a blueprint you have to know how
where you want to make your cuts because it's going to directly affect the next
cut right so I opted for four ribs in because for me it gives me a large
enough shoulder okay and it's also gonna provide me with like the highest real
estate in the backbone here which is where all our attenders cuts come from
this is where we fetch the highest dollar amount and the most recognizable
cuts for the consumer sure so I'm basing in a lot of the retail method but again
not the gospel I don't want anybody to come at us no no that's like no I mean
so there are different reasons there are different ways than to break down a hog
based on where the pieces are going to end up that's right yeah so for retail
it's going to be one way sure in restaurants they may do it a
completely different way because they're looking for different cuts for their
what they're what they're serving their customers for sure and then you know
what the home butcher - we'll break it down according to their needs so maybe
you want a shoulder that's gonna be this week because you're you've got you know
umpteen people coming over for a pig roast or you know you're making pulled
pork for the neighborhood you need a lot more shoulder so go ahead and go between
the seventh and eighth you can play with it whatever you want to do you know it's
flexible that way well and I remember when I lived in the north when we lived
in Thunder Bay and Makena and people would break down a moose oh okay and
everybody had a different idea of how they wanted to break down the moose
because they had different cuts that they'd like to serve their family right
so you know it's personal choice but within this framework let's go for okay
great so I count in one two three four okay right between the fourth and fifth
rib so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna take my knife and I'm gonna go between
those two and I'm gonna bring my knife right out okay then I'm looking for the
disc that most closely aligns with going through between those ribs because this
one in this case okay so I go through and I could severed the connective
tissue then what I'm gonna do is I'm just gonna kind of straight note my
knife a little bit in relation to how my chops are gonna be because as Louise
already said one cut affects the neck so I'm gonna just bring my knife down and
I'm gonna cut through the back fat like so so then what I'm gonna do is I'm
going to flip it over so if you don't mind grabbing this we're just going to
pull it towards me okay so now what I've got is to cut between the ribs and I've
got that cut in the back fat right so now what I'm gonna do is I'm just going
to switch directions my knight so I'm doing more of a push to line up with
between that cut okay so I'll go and I'll meet up with that cut and I'm gonna
go again just to make sure that I've cut all that meat okay so we're good now
what we're gonna do is well in tandem flip it back over again because now what
I can do is I can just snap this off yeah and now I've got a good look at the
shoulder itself so there's quite a few different muscles in here and and fat
mm-hmm so the more exercise and animals doing it's far more relevant and like I
should say relevant but more apparent and pork and I dare say even lamb - okay
chicken for that matter the muscles that do the most work are
gonna in turn have the most color in them okay okay so then what we see is
not only do we have different shades of pink in here but we also have some
really nice marbling not only in the muscle but between the muscles as well
too so I mean that to me would say that this animals at least has gotten some
exercise in its life it's been fed a good diet that has put weight on well
that it's not put on too much weight so that we have way too much fat on the
back so yeah there's just some different markers that I think somebody would be
looking for when they cut into a side of pork to go oh okay you know what I'm I'm
very confident that this is gonna be a nice eating experience cool yep so we're
gonna that's the the front shoulder shoulder yep primal yep and we're gonna
deal with that separately okay great okay so we're gonna we're gonna
I guess the we're gonna break this whole thing down and then we're gonna come
back with separate videos of breaking down the primals yeah okay sounds good
I'll put the shoulder over there okay and and now I think what's gonna be
easiest for us as we'll flip this whole thing around so we're looking at it from
this angle here so so this is the center section of the animal that's right
there's two primals in here yes exactly so we've got our loin okay and then
we've got our belly okay so we need to find two marking spots in order to kind
of dictate where we're gonna separate the two okay so for me I like to go down
where the ribs you're not gonna be able to see this very good sorry guys umm
what I'd like to do is where the ribs kind of meet up with the backbone mm-hm
I usually like to go about two inches down that's just a marker for me I know
that this is gonna give me a dramatic enough and long enough rib bones so when
these become rib chops or we did it in the back ribs that the bones are gonna
be long enough to accommodate both of those okay
so roughly about two inches there okay and then I look for the tenderloin which
is this muscle that runs along right here yep and I go find the Tenderloin on
the side here and then I'm gonna go roughly only about an inch or so down
from the tenderloin so I'll find my mark and I'll make my mark over
okay I come down roughly about an inch from the tenderloin I make my mark there
okay now what I'm gonna do is I'm just gonna trace a line between the two and
let's hope I get it on the first one
there excellent okay okay so from here I'm just gonna take my knife and I make
cut all the way down to the table cool now it's a matter of getting the
solid I'm gonna let you do that so it's and then it's saw through the
ribs that's right okay yeah so if you want you can kind of just move it just a
little bit like so okay then I'm going to switch spots with you and the best
thing to do I found is try to cut all the ribs at once so you want to keep
again your saw yeah exactly as horizontal as possible and it may take a
little bit of you just getting it started up at the front there okay where
the shoulder came off and then bring the saw down and try to cut all the ribs at
the same time and don't put a lot of effort into it because the saw requires
you to put very little effort into it
there you go okay now so we're done with the saw okay now we just need to take a
knife and much like we did with the ham we're just gonna finish off that kind
just yep straight through long motion right to the table that's right there we
go wonderful so belly yep loin that's right cool so this still has some ribs
in it that's right we're gonna we're gonna explore all different options as
we as we as we go through each piece cool so that is the breakdown of a side
of pig to its primals correct um if I hadn't been fussing with the camera that
would have taken what ten minutes fifteen minutes oh my goodness no my
friends walk my colleagues and I have have raced at this and it takes
literally minutes yeah that's trained professionals research and and that's
something that I think a lot of people they feel they need to do it really
quickly I'd rather do it no well no listen I provide my workshops three
hours yeah okay so yeah there's time okay so come on back and in the next
episode we'll start breaking down each of the
primals and we'll go through the primals one primal per episode
great thanks Jamie of course see you again soon thanks for stopping by
you