“They’ve got tremendous flavor, but the real reason they’re there is that they’re so traditional in Catalonia, and I wanted to bring the flavor profile back to northeastern Spain.”
“We cure the whole pig in sugar and salt, and then we pack it in sliced apples and steam it overnight for twelve hours at low temperature. Then we pick out the meat, set it in a big hotel pan, put another hotel pan on top of it, and then set a beer keg on top of that. When we take the weight off, its own gelatin holds it together.”
“Once the pig is ready to cook, we slowly crisp up the skin in a Teflon pan. Then we turn it over so that the meat side is resting in infused olive oil, and the crisp surface will stay that way in the oven when we heat it to order.”
“We want a round sweetness with the pig, which we balance by glazing it with sherry vinegar for an acid note. Plus, fig rhymes with pig.”
“It’s a hardy root vegetable, with a lot of residual sugar, which we bring out by a liberal application of sweet foaming butter. There's a little wilted sorrel served alongside, just for color.”
“We make it from the heads and ears and trotters, all the parts that aren’t used in the dish. We deglaze the roasting pan with Calvados, add the jus, and then cook it down with apple cider. There ends up being a lot of apple and pig flavor there.”