Chefs around Britain continue to cook their way through an entire pig
The hand or spring is normally a cut used in processing. If you’ve eaten a sausage or pie, you’ve eaten this cut. However, it can be cooked as a whole joint; chef David Colcombe shows us how.
The hand is a tricky thing, as it has lots of different muscles running in different directions, making it difficult to carve. David Colcombe, Chef Director of Opus restaurant in Birmingham, neatly skirts around that by it boning out first, leaving just the meat. "You want to cook this long and slow, or even overnight," he tells me. He’s serving the meat with seasonal vegetables and polenta, which is an often over looked alternative to potatoes. Give the man a hand.
Slow braised hand of pork recipe
Kenneth Poon at the Orchid Restaurant in Harrogate started out as a chef in his native Hong Kong, before working his way via Shanghai, and the Dorchester in London, to Harrogate. I took him the top of the belly with the ribs attached.
The belly - and indeed pigs in general - are revered in China. "Chinese people love pork, and it's so easy to cook," he tells me, "lots of flavour too." He also showed me how to cook the classic Hong Kong style belly pork, the key to which is the pricking of the skin, the rubbing in of the lemon juice and salt, and letting it dry out overnight.
Chinese roast pork belly recipe
Chinese pork ribs recipe
Hocks really are good value, and can often be picked up for next to nothing. Traditionally they go in pea and ham soup, but here chef James Mackenzie from the Pipe and Glass shows us another use for them.
Although James is making this wonderful spiced potted pork with the hock, it can work really well with any leftovers, and so is a fitting dish on which to end our tour of the pig. "The key is getting the other flavours in there and getting the texture right," says James. Don’t cut corners with the additions; they’re crucial to the overall taste.
Spiced potted pork with pease pudding recipe
Back to Pork Cuts
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Learn your way around a pig with our interactive guide to pork cuts
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