Pork Cheeks

I ordered a 10 lb case from my specialty meat supplier. I didn't ask him but was thinking they were coming whole and untrimmed. To my surprise they were fully cleaned, which is good in terms of cost. But I wanted some skin on them to give them that crispy skin as Grant showed in the recipe. Anyone have a good resource for pork? The product I got is Berkshire Pork.

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Brendan_Lee_56950

I hear caw caw farms has great pork products. I just picked up my pork jowls from heritage foods and they were very nice, being cured right now for guanciale though.

prince_of_porcelain

Berkshire's good pork. The Queen's swine. Kurobuta is from Berkshire's.

Brendan_Lee_56950

Pork is royalty in my house!

David_Quintana_63467

ahh Caw Caw..you are somewhat in my neck of the woods : ) When ordering Jowls/cheeks.. they are not the same thing when you talk to your local purveyor. You must specify. I made the same mistake. by chance were they from Eden Farms Berkshire? Fool me once..shame on me...

TODD_ANDERSON_36806

This is Berkridge Berkshire out of the midwest.

Brendan_Lee_56950

@dquintana yes unfortunately you have to specify pork cheeks these days as they are becoming more popular so they can make more money by separating the two pieces. I'm not that far south though, only in VA. Have just heard good things about Caw Caw products.

David_Quintana_63467

No i've eaten them... They were all over charleston...but i heard they went maintream to sysco now

David_Quintana_63467

i'm in Charlotte, NC

Brendan_Lee_56950

That's no good. Hopefully they maintain some quality with that quantity!

TODD_ANDERSON_36806

@Dquintana, this was not a Sysco product. I get my specialty orders out of wisconsin that delivers nationwide. Its good berkshire. I don't even deal with Sysco anymore. Hardly ever have and don't plan on it anytime soon.

ipreferale

Had some pork cheeks in the freezer from a local vendor, wondering what I should do with them. Well I made ChefSteps recipe and all I can say is WOW.... Worth all the time just waiting for them to come out of the circulator. We had leftover coffee butter spinach so we had that too.

Images are still quite a pain..

ipreferale

I'll figure out my posting issue...

TODD_ANDERSON_36806

@RED Looks good! How did it taste?

Jack_Mayer_85396

@RED, wow, that looks terrific! What else is that on the plate, mashed potatoes and apples?

prince_of_porcelain

Looks great! We need a place to collect pics of the chef steps recipes as prepared by the forum members. There used to be an "I Cooked This" button on each recipe, but those are gone now. It would be cool to have a link on each recipe page to pics of the various incarnations that everyone is doing.

ipreferale

@Tucker- It was great. My wife even went back for seconds!

@Jack_Mayer- We made the entire recipe with the pickled apples and the celery root puree. Great combination all around.

Chris_Young_80640

@Jack — We're working on improving the ability for all of you to share photos, share recipes, and keep things associated with your profile. Expect to start seeing some of these changes in the next few weeks as we roll them out.

Jack_Mayer_85396

@Chris - that sounds great! looking forward to it!

Mark_Kalynchuk_34927

Random note: Pork Jowl sounds better than cheek. Or it's just me and my Charcuterie background

Brendan_Lee_56950

I agree with you @mark, I like jowl better.

Jack_Mayer_85396

@B - you're the king of guanciale!

Brendan_Lee_56950

I just found a chunk hidden in the freezer. I am very excited!

Jack_Mayer_85396

@B - you're excited and I'm envious!

DiggingDogFarm_65362

Where I come from, cheeks and jowls are two very different things.

Cheeks are mostly muscle.

Here's pic of a plate of cheeks......

Source: http://www.northsouthfood.com/tongue-n-cheek-a-hot-steamy-sticky-pudding/

~Martin

DiggingDogFarm_65362

Here's a video that does a good job of showing the cheeks on the head....starting at about 4:00....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyAyx32jkAw

~Martin

Brendan_Lee_56950

The way I've always actually learned it growing up was jowl = the entire cheek/jowl area and cheek was simply just the meat portion of that bigger cut. But I've learned that in the south here the jowl can mean many different things. Most of the smoked jowls we can find in the stores are actually cheeks only.

DiggingDogFarm_65362

Apparently it's varies greatly from area to area, I've never seen a smoked cheek.

Around here cheeks are either braised for various dishes or cooked and used in souse, scrapple, hogmaw and the like.

Jowls, however, are smoked and used in various ways.

The bulk of the jowl is much lower on the head.

~Martin

Brendan_Lee_56950

Amazing what a 5-6 hour drive south will get ya!

Matt__34377

A recipe I always come back to for cheeks is a simple confit in oil. After they are done, press and chill then slice like bacon strips. Fry and dispense at will. Incredilbly unctuous and rich.