{"id":3019,"date":"2013-05-15T08:50:21","date_gmt":"2013-05-15T15:50:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theguycancook.com\/blog\/?p=3019"},"modified":"2013-05-15T08:50:21","modified_gmt":"2013-05-15T15:50:21","slug":"know-your-pork-the-rear-limb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/theguycancook.com\/blog\/2013\/05\/15\/know-your-pork-the-rear-limb\/","title":{"rendered":"Know Your Pork: The Rear Limb"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Rear<\/a><\/p>\n

Between the delicious delights of a cured and smoked ham and the more obscure delicacy of trotter gear, the rear limb is an essential piece of pork to understand.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m cooking and eating an entire pig<\/a>\u2013and along this journey I hope to teach you how to make use of the whole hog from snout to tail\u2013but even the occasional pork-eater can benefit from knowing where their pork comes from.<\/p>\n

In the last article<\/a>, I broke down a front limb primal into its small sub-primal cuts and laid out the game plan of how I plan to cook it all up.<\/p>\n

As you\u2019d imagine, the rear limb is similar in many ways, but unique enough to merit its own mini-guide.<\/p>\n

And first of all I\u2019d like to demystify one of the most prized pork dishes of them all\u2026<\/p>\n

Ham<\/h2>\n

\"Ham\"<\/a><\/p>\n

When most of us hear \u201cham,\u201d we think only of the final product\u2013a large hunk of pork that has been cured and smoked to a pink and delicious little piece of heaven.<\/p>\n

But in the strictest sense, ham refers merely to the cut of meat that surrounds the upper rear leg of the hog.<\/p>\n

This is the quintessential roast, and is a traditional meal for holidays such as Easter. On top of that, the ginormous bone found within will make your dog think you are the greatest thing ever.<\/p>\n

Trust me.<\/em><\/p>\n

Yes, you can<\/em> cut up raw ham into steaks and roasts, but I\u2019d be crazy if I didn\u2019t do the traditional method of wet-curing for several weeks followed by slow smoking for these bad boys.<\/p>\n

(You can also dry-cure hams to make such delicacies as prosciutto, but it requires months<\/em> in a strictly temperature- and humidity-controlled room. No thanks.)<\/p>\n

It\u2019s very unlikely that you\u2019ll ever find a raw ham at the supermarket. They are generally sold pre-cured (and junked-up with a whole bunch of nasty-ass ingredients), so if you really want a great ham for a big feast, you\u2019ll want to get one from a local farmer and follow along with my traditional method of preparation.<\/p>\n

Hock, Trotter, Skin, and Fat<\/h2>\n

\"Rear<\/a><\/p>\n

Just like the front limb, the rear limb primal contains a hock, a trotter, and plenty of skin and fat.<\/p>\n

\"Rear<\/a><\/p>\n

The rear hock is larger than the front hock, but apart from that, these parts are interchangeable with their analogous cuts up front. I\u2019ll be using them the same way that I\u2019ll be using the parts from the front limb<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Rear<\/a><\/p>\n

In particular, the skin and fat in this part doesn\u2019t get a lot of praise, so it\u2019s probably best to use this for some simple pork rinds and schmaltz for cooking fat.<\/p>\n

The Tail<\/h2>\n

\"Tail\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The one \u201cbonus part\u201d you get off the rear limb that has no analog on the front limb is the tail.<\/p>\n

While you can gather a bunch of them together to make crispy tails, the effort hardly seems worth it if you just have one.<\/p>\n

So I\u2019ll be tossing this in along with the head and trotters to make headcheese.<\/p>\n

Notes On Butchering<\/h2>\n

\"Rear<\/a><\/p>\n

Like the front limb, this is a straightforward cut to break down into sub-primal cuts, but in this case even easier<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The front limb requires separation between the shoulder blade and upper limb bone to form the butt and picnic cuts, but the upper limb requires no additional separation. You just get one big ol\u2019 ham.<\/p>\n

Separating the hock and trotter are straightforward as well, and require only separating the bones and meat at the \u201cknee\u201d and \u201cankle\u201d of the cut.<\/p>\n

The only new skill is butchering the tail and removing the hip bone. Just slice through the tail with a knife and remove the hip easily from the ham.<\/p>\n

Again, I had my butcher cut through the bone with a saw and I just cut through the flesh. Either ask your butcher to do the same, or get ready to break out the saw.<\/p>\n

While the front and rear limb primals are pretty easy to break down, the midsection is a whole<\/em> \u2019nother story.<\/p>\n

In the next article in the Whole Hog Project series, I\u2019ll show you how you can break down that intimidating cut of meat on your own, minimize risk of losing a finger (or worse), and show you where that most sacred of meats\u2013bacon<\/em>\u2013comes from.<\/p>\n

Stay tuned!<\/em><\/p>\n<\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Between the delicious delights of a cured and smoked ham and the more obscure delicacy of trotter gear, the rear limb is an essential piece of pork to understand. I\u2019m cooking and eating an entire pig\u2013and along this journey I hope to teach you how to make use of the whole hog from snout to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[260],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-whole-hog-project"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/theguycancook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/theguycancook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/theguycancook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/theguycancook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/theguycancook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3019"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/theguycancook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3019\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3033,"href":"http:\/\/theguycancook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3019\/revisions\/3033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/theguycancook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/theguycancook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/theguycancook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}