You’ve probably repressed memories of that first time — only time — you reached passed the long strings of “jerky” offered by the only truck stop on some desolate stretch of highway and grabbed a bag of crunchy, bulbous puffed pork skins.
Those indifferent rinds belong on dreary shelves. But pork belly, prepared with both respect for culinary tradition and a sense of passion deserves to be surrounded by white cloth and fine china.
Yeah, I know. The cut has a back alley reputation — an unfair judgement enforced by the names given the dish in various cultures. Pork rinds suggests something discarded. The southern term, cracklins, conjures images of cast iron and popping grease. In England they are known by the mildly unpleasant “scratchings.”
At least chicharron, the Spanish language singular, casts a hint of worldliness on the dish. And the Duroc pork belly chicharrones at The Saw Shop Gallery Bistro in Kelseyville is like a debonair and well traveled mondain.
Chef Jeremy Zabel starts with pork belly — the cut associated with bacon — from Duroc pigs, a hefty, rust hued heritage breed dating back to the time of Madison, Adams and Jefferson.
“They have a lot more marbling and flavor,” he explained. “The meat is a lot sweeter and the fat is delicious.”
Zabel cures the meat for two days in salt and brown sugar then smokes it over pecan wood for five to six hours before slicing into cubes of ruddy, fibrous meat and rich fat. He then braises the bite-sized cuts and dresses them with chili-lime salt.
“You get a nice fat layer and a nice meat layer,” he said.
But the word “nice” cannot truly define the experience. The Saw Shop’s chicharrones balance bucolic and sophisticated. Gentle strands of meat seem to melt away, yielding a naturally sweet, tangy savor. Yet still manage to retain that familiar fibrous texture somehow. The mellow fat oozes under a ruddy patina that is hearty and sweet, calling up notions of candied meat.
There is a zip of citrus, and this rides over a lowing streak of pleasant smoke. All of this is sparked by just enough salt.
It is a cushy, comfortable, and thoroughly engaging appetizer. You expect to look up from the plate and see a place setting of capers, slivers of red onion, dill as the steady tapping of pedestrians on wet Parisian cobblestones provides ambience.
Yes, it is like that.
“This has been one of our bigger hits out of the pork dishes,” Zabel said.
The chef admitted that fine dining establishments and their guests once shunned the cut, along with all other forms of rustic charcuterie. But diners and chefs are now reaching back, finding and redefining the foods of hearth and home.
“In the U.S. people are coming out of that phase and into comfort foods,” Zabel pointed out. “You eat what tastes good.”
Indeed.
Dave Faries can be reached at 900-2016
