Is A $185 Per Pound Pork Product Worth It?

Who doesn’t enjoy trying new products? One of the great advantages of being into food is there is always something new and different to try. Sometimes it’s great and sometimes not so wonderful. A while back we were going to visit some friends and I thought it might be fun to bring something different to their house to serve as an appetizer with a glass of wine. At our local Farmer’s Market, I asked my friend Cheeseman Jack for a great cheese and some sort of cured meat.

Jack who you might remember turned me on to that wonderful Chabichou du Poitou cheese, that rich, soft goat’s milk cheese from France. This time he said he come into some Jamon Iberico de Bellota, but it was pricey. I’m thinking it is a cured pork product, how expensive can it be. I am shocked to tell you it was $185/pound!

Being interested in trying something pork that cost that much, I was game to taste it, but I could only afford 4 paper-thin slices! It was delicious, but honestly, I am not sure that I would have been able to tell the difference between it and some good Italian prosciutto at a fraction of the price.

To be fair, I did not do a side-by-side taste comparison. After tasting Spain’s finest (and most expensive) pork product, I decided to do a little research to see what I could find out about this ham. What on earth could the Spanish do to this ham to make it worth almost $200/pound? I found out some really interesting information.

The best Spanish ham, Jamon Iberico, comes from the cerdo negro, or the Black Iberian Pig. These pigs are an ancient breed whose roots can be traced back to about 1000 BC, when pigs that were brought over to the Iberian Peninsula (now Spain and Portugal) from the Eastern Mediterranean were interbred with native wild boars.

These pigs are unique in many ways. They have lots of fat deposits under the skin, and fat is also deposited between the muscle fibers. This fairly even distribution of fat interspersed with muscle helps to give a very buttery and rich flavor to the final hams. Also, these pigs are natural grazers. Unlike most domesticated pig breeds, the Black Iberian Pig grazes about and forages for its own food - acorns.

Depending on the grade of Jamon Iberico that the producer is making, the pigs are fed, especially during the weeks leading up to their “sacrifice,” either a straight diet of acorns, a mixed diet of acorns and grains or straight grain. The highest grade of Jamon Iberico is Jamon Iberico de Bellota (meaning “acorn”), which is made from pigs fed strictly on acorns.

Once sacrificed, the hams are salted and left to dry for two weeks. Then, they are rinsed and left to dry for another four to six weeks. The total curing process takes between 24 and 48 months.

Here’s the really interesting part. Because the pigs ate a diet high in monounsaturated fats from the acorns, much of the fat in the ham is oleic acid. This is a “good fat” that has been shown to lower LDL cholesterol. Imagine that? “Bacon” that is good for your cholesterol! I can’t wait to tell my friend Jeff who has this belief that there is nothing on this earth that doesn’t go well with either a pork product or chocolate.

Like I said, even after doing all this research and finding out about Jamon Iberico de Bellota, I’m still not sure that I could tell the difference between it and prosciutto. I will say that Italian prosciutto and Spanish Jamon Iberico both embody the true spirit of preservation - taking something that would otherwise spoil quickly and treating it with great attention to detail to make a final product that is not only edible but incredibly delicious.

True Jamon Iberico de Bellota has only been available legally in the United States since the middle of 2008. If you would like to try it for yourself, it is available on the Internet at the Gourmet Food Store.

Where Does Chocolate Come From?

Yesterday, I received an email from Alyssa who sent in a two-part question regarding chocolate. She wanted to know whether there really is a difference between semisweet and bittersweet chocolate and why a recipe would call for both. Both of these are excellent questions and I will do what I can to make chocolate a little more clear.

The short answer for part 1 of her question is: not necessarily. The short answer for part II is: probably personal preference. Unfortunately, to really understand the difference between semisweet and bittersweet chocolate requires more than just short answers but a more detailed response. Let’ start from the beginning where chocolate comes from and

Where Does Chocolate Come From

Chocolate is made from cocoa beans, which is in turn grow inside pods on the cocoa tree. The first step in making chocolate is to harvest and open the pods, exposing the beans. The beans are allowed to ferment for about a week and then are dried.

At this point, the beans are roasted. Roasting not only brings out their flavor, it also makes the husks easier to remove. After roasting, the beans are cracked into cocoa nibs (pieces generally no larger than 1/8”), and all the husks are separated. The nibs contain 53% cocoa butter and 47% cocoa solids.

The next steps separate the cocoa butter from the solids. First the nibs are ground until they form a thick paste (cocoa mass or chocolate liquor). Then, the paste is pressed so all the cocoa butter is “squeezed out.” What is left is 100% pure cocoa solids. When finely ground, the solids are sold as cocoa powder.

To make chocolate for eating and cooking, chocolate manufacturers combine unpressed chocolate liquor, extra cocoa butter, sugar, vanilla, and sometimes milk solids (only in the case of milk chocolate). This mixture is churned together and then refined to break down the different particles and make is very smooth.

After the refining process, the chocolate is conched. Conching is the process by which heavy rollers further grind and blend the chocolate, incorporate some air to help some of the more bitter compounds evaporate and breaking down the chocolate to a silky smoothness. Conching can take up to six day.

The last step in the process is tempering. Tempering is the repeated heating and cooling of the chocolate to specific temperatures. The goal of tempering is to force the different fats in cocoa butter to all set up and crystallize together into a very stable form. Properly tempered chocolate will be very hard. It will snap when you break it, melt slowly and have a lovely sheen. The end result is an emulsion of very small dry chocolate particles suspended in a stable matrix of fat (cocoa butter).

Dark Chocolate

Since all chocolate is made following these steps, the differences between chocolates depend on the flavor profile of the beans used, the proportion of cocoa solids to sugar to cocoa butter, and the amount of refining and processing. In the US, the two basic kinds of chocolate available are dark and milk. To be sold as dark chocolate, the candy must contain at least 35% chocolate (total amount of cocoa solids and cocoa butter). In the UK, it must contain at least 42% chocolate.

What About Milk Chocolate

Milk chocolate must contain 10% chocolate and 12% dairy. Technically, white chocolate is not chocolate at all because it contains no cocoa solids. It is generally made from cocoa butter, sugar, vanilla and milk solids.

In some less expensive chocolates, some or all of the cocoa butter is replaced by other more stable fats, usually palm, palm kernel or coconut oil. These confections are known as coating chocolates or compound chocolates. Since these fats have a higher melting point than cocoa butter, chocolate made with them will not melt in your mouth the way that high quality chocolate does. On the plus side, these coating chocolates do not need to be tempered.

Now that we’ve all had a crash course in how chocolate is made, let’s get back to Alyssa’s question. There is no real regulation of the amount of sugar used to make dark chocolate; whether a manufacturer labels the chocolate semi-sweet or bittersweet is not dictated by the government (or any other body, for that matter).

As a result, one manufacturer might make a chocolate with 50% chocolate and call it semi-sweet while another might label that same chocolate bittersweet. Where the difference between the two (when there is any) really matters is in the ratio of cocoa solids to sugars in a particular recipe.

Let’s say that, for the sake of argument, a recipe calls for 1 ounce of 64% semi-sweet chocolate. This means that .64 oz is made up of cocoa solids and cocoa butter. The remaining .36 oz is made up of sugar, vanilla and perhaps an emulsifier (lecithin). If all you have is 85% chocolate on hand, this means that 85% is made up of chocolate with only the remaining 15% made up of sugar, vanilla and possibly lecithin. You can go ahead and use the 85% chocolate, but as you can see, it will be more chocolaty and less sweet than the 64% chocolate.

In a recipe that calls for several ounces of a particular percentage chocolate, you might have to increase the amount of sugar when substituting a higher percentage chocolate. When substituting a lower percentage chocolate (say, 50% for 70%) you might need to compensate by adding a little less sugar and maybe a little cocoa powder and butter.

As to why a particular recipe calls for a mixture of semi-sweet and bittersweet chocolate, I can only surmise that the author was going for a specific flavor profile. Now, having said that, no two chocolates taste exactly the same, so unless they expressly call for certain brands and percentages, I would probably just go ahead and use whatever I had on hand, not worrying too much about just a few percentage points.

Does Chocolate Really Taste Sweet?

If someone asked you “how does chocolate taste?” your first response might be, “Sweet.” Chocolate is not sweet at all. Did you ever try a nibble off the corner of one of your mom’s Baker’s Unsweetened Chocolate Squares?

Remember the face you made? 100% chocolate, containing nothing more than cocoa solids, cocoa butter and maybe some vanilla is one of the most bitter things you will ever put in your mouth. While a Hershey’s milk chocolate bar might taste “sweet,” what you are really tasting is all of the sugars, both sucrose from the added sugar and lactose from the milk solids. Just remember, the higher the percentage of chocolate in the bar, the more chocolaty and the less sweet it will be.

Tomorrow I will post some examples of baking brownies with unsweetened chocolate and semisweet chocolate. You will see there is a vast difference between the two.

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Every once in a while you come across something new in the culinary world that really surprises you because you’ve never heard of it before and it turns out to be incredible. This is what happened when we dined at Quahog’s Seafood Shack, a new restaurant in Stone Harbor, NJ that locals remember as Tridi Jo’s.

Quahog’s Seafood Shack is owned and operated by Argentina born Chef Lucas Manteca who also owns another Stone Harbor Restaurant that my wife and I dined at called Sea Salt. I’ll write about that experience another time. Quahog’s is a casual restaurant that welcomes kids, is named for the large hard clam and is all about seafood.

Among his most popular dishes are his soft shell crabs, Maine Lobster Roll, Cape May Salt Oysters and my entry, Pacu fish ribs.

While many local restaurants are serving salmon, swordfish or tuna, you’ll find sustainable fish like barramundi or escolar. Chef Lucas post grilled fish but what he serves each night changes depending on what’s fresh and available.

My wife shared the Lobster Bake with my youngest daughter and feasted on lobster, clams, mussels, shrimp, potatoes and corn on the cob. They also served a tasty cole slaw that had a spicy flavor to it. Both of them thought it was excellent.

The blackboard posting the daily specials listed Barbecued Pacu Ribs with coconut rice. When I asked our server for more information about Pacu and how they can be served as barbecued ribs, she told us Pacu is a Brazilian fresh water fish that grows to over 60 pounds. When she told us the ribs looked just liked pork barbecued ribs I knew I had to give them a try and I’m glad that I did.

They purchase their Pacu ribs from Samuels & Son Seafood Company so I looked up their web site and here is what they say, “Pacu grows very fast to very large sizes. They can eat almost any food, and are now being raised in huge fish farms throughout the world as a food fish, especially in Brazil.”

“The large and meaty pacu ribs, whether fired, grilled or barbequed on a spit are a unique, and highly appreciated delicacy. Whole pacu is normally prepared by oven baking or grilling on the barbeque.”

When our food arrived, I couldn’t believe how much the Pacu looked like barbecued ribs. They were stacked up on the plate the same way I’ve been served bbq ribs in restaurants. They were glazed with a rich barbecue sauce that had a hint of chipotle in it that gave it a tangy spiciness. What a great summer alternative to barbecue ribs.

When I took my first bite, I noticed the fish was meaty, tender and delicious.  If I remember correctly, there were three thin, flat bones per rib and the meat pulled off the bones with every bite.  Although the texture wasn’t exactly like meat ribs, Pacu comes pretty close. I don’t think you will find them in most fish markets, but you may want to ask your favorite fish monger if he can order you some. I’ll see if I can interview  Chef Lucas and get some tips for cooking and maybe his recipe for barbecue sauce.

photo from samuels and son seafood - I forgot my camera.