As many of you already know I am a big fan of pork. I am not talking about the boring pork loin or pork tenderloin. Sure you can do some fun things with them but they are pretty one-dimensional. I can have even more fun with a shoulder or a fresh ham. But when you give any chef “worth his salt” the option of any cut of pig they want to cook, they will all tell you the belly. My little girls, Natalie and Ava (twin 4 1/2 year olds) laugh when I sit at the breakfast table the following morning from after a long day cooking for a charity food event and I tell them that we were the hit at the food show because we served pork belly. They laugh because they think I’m just joking cause belly is silly. They ask who would eat that? My wife knows better. Sure I could have went to the charity event and just seared a scallop and served it over polenta, and that would have been fine. I learned many years ago while attending numerous food expos and shows that people always huddled around the booth that was cooking the bacon. The smell was always intoxicating especially with a bunch of chefs running around. This is what a chef thinks while at these long drawn out shows. Do I really want to listen to another salesman try to sell me better hand sanitizer because his will save me hundreds of dollars a month or do I wanna find the bacon stand. Let my nose lead the way! I take generally the same idea and use it to my advantage at the charity events.
You have to understand that I do these events to get the restaurants name out there and it is great to help out with the local communities charity. This is all true but I like to have fun and stretch my wings at these events. I sit down several months in advance and talk with my guys and ask them what they want to cook. We usually kick around a few ideas but lately we have all being coming up with the same pork belly dish. It is amazing how soft and tender it turn out, we cook it for 48 hours at 175*. Low and slow, I mean slow!!! People are amazed when we tell them that we cooked it for two days. We try to take the food very serious but not ourselves at these events. I want everyone to have a blast and walk away talking about how delicious our food was. I always bring at least one cook and one of my sous chefs with me. We could do it with less, but it is good for them to get out of the kitchen and talk with the guests. My guys know me very well by now and they know that we go there to blow people away. We say our 30 second spiel and tell them how we came up with the idea. I love watching my guys faces light up when guests come back for their third and fourth time. It shows them how their hard work pays off. They think it is funny when people come up an “beg”, I mean ask to please don’t change the dish for the following year. So next winter we will again be serving Pumpkin Seed Crusted Pork Belly with a Smoked Bourbon-Maple Glaze over a Butternut Squash Puree. Hopefully my little girls won’t laugh at me next year when I tell them again that we were the hit at the show.
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