Fortunately I had printed out my previous notes, so we could try and work it out. It was a little more complicated because
- this porker is huge, ideal for bacon and roasting joints.
- We don't want bacon or large roasting joints this time
- We wanted to separate out the shoulder meat to use in making luncheon meat, pork pie, and Nuremberg sausages.
DH started on the back leg, cutting out a piece for ham.
While he did that, I took the fat off the loin, and I took out the tenderloin. Then I started taking the fat off the belly.
I took the rest of the back leg from DH and started breaking it down into lean dice, lean mince, meat for sausages, and fat for rendering into lard. I used to hate lard, home made lard is amazing.
DH worked on the belly, taking out the ribs, and cutting some pork belly joints for roasting. I then took the rest of the belly for processing.
DH worked on the shoulder, cutting a hand of pork for roasting, and then the rest of the shoulder. I used separate bowls to produce lean shoulder dice, and lean shoulder for mincing.
DH worked on the loin, cutting half a dozen enormous loin chops. (I can't stand pork chops personally. Can't stand the smell of them cooking, or the texture of them when cooked.) . I then took the rest of the loin and cut it into the usual lean dice, lean mince, sausage meat.
When all four primary cuts were finished, we started prepping for the freezer. The three belly joints and the and were scored, then bagged, sealed and put in the freezer. The shoulder was weighed into portions - 1kg for luncheon meat, 1kg for Nuremberg, whatever was required for pork pie. Any leftovers were added into the other bowls.
The lean dice was bagged in 250g portions, I had about 10 of those.
I made 4 large jars of lard.
DH tunnel boned the leg, ready to make a ham. All the bones and the trotters went to make trotter stock (for the luncheon meat and the pork pie).
All the allocated stuff went into the fridge overnight, for prepping today.
Today we minced the mince, and put it in the freezer. The meat for sausages was minced, and the seasoning and rusk added, it's in the fridge chilling before we stuff sausages. . The shoulder for the luncheon meat was minced. The meat for the Nuremberger was minced, and the seasoning added; it's in the fridge chilling.
Freezer space is at a premium, so I need to do some vacuum sealing.....
