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In this video, AmazingRibs.com founder and BBQ Hall Of Famer Meathead prepares the best pork roast ever — porchetta! He is joined in the video by Greg and Kristina Gaardbo of Chicago Culinary Kitchen in Palatine, IL (https://chicagoculinarykitchen.com/).
“When people think of the classic Italian dishes, pizza and pasta usually come to mind, but in my mind, it is Porchetta. They are BIG tubes of pork rolled around spices and other goodies meant to serve a crowd. When I went to Italy I tasted several variations and tried to think of how to create a recipe for you that is not so large but is true to the Italian versions. Others have tried. Cook’s Illustrated and the New York Times did something from pork shoulder that really is not even close.
“Then, one day, I was hanging with my friends, Greg and Kristina Gaardbo of the Chicago Culinary Kitchen in Palatine, IL, and I saw them nail it. Instead of using pork loin as I had been trying, they did it with pork belly that they butterflied. That captured the essence of the rich, fatty, Italian original. In this video I invited them to show you themselves. If you can get a meaty belly with the skin on, you can come even closer to the original,” says Meathead.
To learn more about this dish and how to prepare it, visit https://amazingribs.com/porchetta.
today we’ve got a special treat this is going to be a lot of fun you’re going to see something you’ve probably never seen cook before today I have with us a couple of guest stars I have Greg and Christina gbo from Chicago Culinary Kitchen and Palatine Illinois they are masters of poretta now I don’t know if you’ve heard of poretta before but when people think of the classic Italian foods they always say pizza and spaghetti but in my mind it’s poretta poretta is made all over Italy in different techniques but basically it’s a giant roll of pork with herbs and spices in Aria where they make it not just not far from Rome they stuff it with kidneys and liver and organ meats and they tie up a whole hog and um it’s just amazing people come line up and they slice it and they serve it on a sandwich um in Tuscany at daro chini’s uh butcher shop the oldest butcher shop in um he does it with just the um middle section of the hog um and so I’ve been trying to figure out how to do this for a recipe for you guys for backyard cooks and I’ve been struggling with this for years and these guys showed me how to do it right so I’m going to turn over the floor to Greg and Christina and they’re going to show you how to make one fantastic pork dish hey everybody uh I’m Greg gbo i’m Christina gbo we’re going to show you how to make this uh really beautiful porketta here um so this is our pork belly here that we got from White marble Farms it’s a really great piece of meat so um there’s really only a couple things here that we’re going to do to um season this with Christina what do we got we’ve got uh granulated garlic we have uh chili uh flakes we have um Italian seasoning Pizza seasoning um either one works great we also have fennel we have Co kosher salt and then we have these beautiful little tomatoes that meet head was nice enough to smoke for us so there’s a couple things in preparation that we’re going to start with um because this is so thick to begin with remember we’re going to roll this this would be way too thick uh for us to roll so we’re going to filet this down but first we’re going to do is we’re going to score this so that when uh this is cooking we get nice little crispy little bits on here that will be really nice and uh tasty then everybody’s loves those crispy bits that’s one of the signature features of for ketta is the outside is really crispy you’re getting cracklings on the outside and for those of you who heard him say belly you should understand that most pork belly is actually from the side of the hog um here rotate it’s from yeah how we going to do this it’s from the side and also along the back it’s right on top of the rib cage she’s more ve than she is uh you notice how who I picked to do the demo we did notice so we’re going to score this but he’s got the sharp knife mhm yeah watch out and we’re only breaking through um the top layer of this fat here right this fat cap we’re not cutting really deep we’re just cutting this right here to the right here to the fat cap so that’s it for that now we’re going to take this and fillet this so there’s usually two ends there’s a a a thicker end here and then there’s a thinner end I always start with the thinner end so that this way this maintains itself uh as we filt it then and by the way most grocery stores don’t have pork belly in stock there’s not a big call for it it’s what’s used for making bacon but you can order it and this is really important get to know your local butcher it’s more important than knowing your local stock broker get to know your local butcher you go in there in the morning because they get there early to receive the trucks and let them know that you’re into barbecue and Grilling and they’ll take care of you you can special order anything if they don’t have pork belly you can order it they’ll have it in in a couple of days if you need a whole pack or brisket you can order it they’ll have it for a few days and then after you’re done cooking a poretta bring some in and let them have it they all sit down for lunch together the The Butchery staff often does and give them something that you’ve cooked they’ll remember you and the next time you’re wandering through the meat section they’ll say hey we just got into some prime rib the other day and it is Top Choice you want some rib IE steaks and and you say yes please nothing like a sharp knife these new um G vham knives are just fantastic it’s right what you say about bringing food into them you know what food is love and that’s how you make friends barbecue and beer there you go yeah I don’t know if you can bring your butcher beer but well beer braids barbecue yeah yeah it well it takes a lot of good beer to make barbecue well we’re going to cut this here right till where we get where it starts to get thick here so that this flattens out for us uh like I said the thinner end versus the thicker end one of the things you always have to remember when you’re dealing with meat it’s never the same twice this is not a widget this is not a piece of Steel you know people always say my brisket was tough what’ I do wrong and I they they I look at what they did they did everything right they just had an ory piece of cow that’s all sometimes the the the meat is just not all that great so don’t don’t sweat little stuff so here we are now we filleted this this is going to make a really amazing piece of uh meat here so now we’re going to season it then all right so we’re going to use the grin lated garlic and you can’t you can’t be shy with it don’t be shy I’m not going to be shy how when have I ever been shy you look shy I look shy uh so the garlic is this really garlic is really going to come through on this now I’ve seen you use hold garlic in this we’ve used hold garlic as well um it works the same uh I mean if you have all fresh ingredients that’s even better the beauty thing about this is that you can put in it whatever you want whatever seasonings you feel like we’ve done pistachios and cherries before um it really just depends what kind of flavor profile you’re going for yeah in Italy they they go heavy on the herbs um fennel and um is a major one and Rose um most of them use a lot of Rosemary on the inside I prefer the fennel over the Rosemary cuz the Rosemary I think is a little more overpowering but when I get the fennel flavor um to me it tastes like that sausage then you know it tastes like an Itali yeah yeah right Italian sausage yep and that’s what it tast which which we know and love in this part of the country and I have had Italian sausage all around the country and they nobody knows how to do it right except Chicago same way with the red chili flakes this is going to have some you know nice little backend heat to it as well and this is the fennel well there’s a lot of stuff going in there there is it’s going to smell wonderful with the AR oh yeah you know we too bad we don’t have smell of vision same with the salt you know we can go heavy on this as well it’s a big piece of meat and we’re going to Salt the outside as well and we’ve talked a little bit about Salt the magic rock salt will actually penetrate into the meat whereas the other stuff is going to lay on the surface and salt there it is absolutely necessary um for flavor and for moisture yeah perfect yep these are the cherry tomatoes that um you take cherry tomatoes and you poke a few holes in them and you put them on your smoker at around 225 takes about 5 or 6 hours and they turn into these raisins they’re still soft and pliable and they are as sweet as candy they’re great on pizzas f*cki bake it into a f*cka on a salad really fun stuff and they’re going to throw it in here today I’m flattered so now cuz when we cut this up this is going to be you know you’re going to look at the side this is all going to be rolled up and you’re going to get a nice piece of this uh with every bite then so now we’re going to take this and roll this up you want to help yep so we going to take this got roll nice and tight slide it mhm hey see if you were watching carefully he had a little slicer there made a little hole just like when you ain’t get a pizza shell sometimes you get a little hole so he’s rolling it so it’s buried inside and if you see we rolled it now so the fat cap stays on outside then mhm look at that thing and now we’re going to tie it then this is probably takes the most time out of anything is to tie this well that’s cuz you’re perfectionist I’ve seen your ties yeah my ties uh look like a three-year-old tie in a sh no cuz you have to be perfect with it because this thing will fall apart on you otherwise so we’re going to tie a butcher’s knot on here I always like to work it from the one side around so I’m getting everything underneath it and I’m probably going somewhere in the neighborhood of about every inch and a half give or take so to make the night to make the knot take this together we go around we go down and then we come up and we snug it and then you’ll be able to pull it then it still went too fast for me you’re going to have to do it again on the next one and talk us through it cuz I want everybody to learn it like starting with me yeah it’s taken me a while I’m very slow at her I would be helping with this we’re going to let him I I got I’m still learning the I just tied but I can’t remember a phone number so you know we all have but I know how to tie a knot we take it like this go slow we go around spin it around here and then down so the rabbit goes around the tree and then down the hole but this is probably one of the most important things that you can do is tie this baby up nice and neat it’s all about the presentation speaking of presentation Chicago Culinary Kitchen is open only Saturdays and Sundays for lunch just for lunch and when they run out they run out I mean they cook x amount and it’s they are really good they this is not just your your rib joint um what are some of the other things on the menu uh so we do Texas barbecue um so our brisket everything’s dry we don’t actually sauce anything we’ve got brisket we’ve got St Louis spare ribs we also have a version of those spare ribs called back alley sticky ribs that we do a hot honey and a dooka on top duka is a mix of chopped white and black sesame seeds pistachios and fennel great thing about the poretta is you can do it on a rotiss you can do it in a smoker um and you can even do it in your oven with no smoke if somebody doesn’t have a smoker which is actually a couple of the places we went to in Italy and had it it wasn’t smoked they did it in their oven no yeah they’re not big on Smoked Meats over there yeah you can do this indoors in a pan or over a pan on a rack over a pan you can do it on a grill we talked about two Zone cooking where you can have a Hot Zone and a cool Zone you put this over the indirect Cool Zone so it Cooks just by convection air flow and uh you can so you don’t need a rotisserie but since they’re famous for the rotisserie today we’re going to do it on a rotisserie and we’ve got a fun thing going too and we’ll show you that we’re going to cook some vegetables underneath to catch the drippings into the vegetables that’s going to taste amazing one thing I like about rotisserate cooking um that we’ve noticed especially with the Tasco cooking we do is as it spins you will get some drippings but most of that juice keeps just marinating whatever is spinning on the grill that’s why it tastes so good well one of the interesting things about the physics of rotisserie is you’ve got a hot burner up here so it’s Browning and cooking here and as it rotates it cools and as it rotates it cools so if you’re if you put a really sensitive thermometer on the surface the graph would go hot cool hot cool they call it a sinusal wave a sinusal wave and that helps somehow um holding the juiciness and then as it rotates the juices don’t all drip off they rotate around like uh on a ferris wheel and they keep basting the meat as they go so the last thing that we’re going to do to this then is I mean you can or cannot it’s up to you I but you see how long this got right remember it was only this now we we gained a couple inches I just like to trim this off here you could cook this on the Grilla if you want to but now we can see what we have on the inside then it’s all about presentation he likes the neat ends so we see that right in here how nice and rolled and tight that is beautiful and then we’re going to skewer this baby up take it out to the Rotisserie but last but not least we’re going to we’re going to Salt this again uh on the top so that this is nice this salt works here and it’ll help crisp up and then when you get that bite that first bite bite you’re going to be like wow this is awesome and even some garlic on the top of this never too much garlic nope and as we were saying you can basically use any seasonings you want if there’s a certain profile you’re going for be creative with it have fun with it well for things like this I like to put um uh paprika on the outside cuz it gives it a really nice rich um color m smoked paprika yeah yeah I like smoked paprika I think we have some in the house smoked paprika you called for it you got it thank you that’s that smoked hot paprika so we’re going to double up on that uh Chili Peppers there and by the way you can make your own paprika it’s really easy and it’s wonderful it’s better than anything you buy from the store we grow a variety of pepper here called Carmine and it’s from it’s from seeds from Italy and they’re really sweet and all you got to do is put them on a grill or a smoker or in your oven at a very low temperature around 200 um poke some holes in it so the moisture can evaporate and dehydrate it until it’s hard and crispy and then you can p grind it up in a coffee grinder or in a mortar and pestle and you get really good and that’s what you’ve got there I did this on the smoker and just ground it up to a fine powder and uh you smoke the whole pepper and as it’s dehydrating then you grind it up and you have smoked paprika and that hot paprika is from jalapenos oh nice easy to do at home and it’s so much better than the store bought so there we go we’re all set okay so uh let’s bring in the skewer and skew her up and get her on the rotiss let’s go we’re 2 hours into this so far give or take so now we’re going to uh temp it and we’re also going see how it looks like oh my god there she is look at that that’s amazing that is a thing of beauty we’re going to turn off the RO rotation here we’re going to check it beautiful look at this thing just she’s sizzling it’s amazing look at it Sizzle and you can see the drops going down on the veggies now listen to the veggies now what we’ve done here is this is a technique I call it the pot sticker technique cuz I learned it from uh Chinese restaurants when they make pot stickers um they put oil in the pan they put water on top of the oil and they put the pot stickers in the pan and the water simmers and boils off and Cooks the pot stickers cuz it’s got pork in it Cooks them through when the water boils off the temperature rises and the pot stickers brown on the bottom and stick to the pan and that’s how come you get a pot sticker that’s brown and crispy on the bottom and tender on the surface so we’ve done the same thing here and I’ve done this on rotisserie chicken also we’ve put the veggies in here a layer of oil a layer of water and we’ve let the water evaporate and now they’re Browning in the oil and you got to kind of keep an eye on it because it depends on how long they cook and how much water you don’t want it to burn so you got to keep an eye on them and uh the uh you know we’ve got the simultaneous done here we’ve got the poretta at Perfection and the veggies are ready to roll so uh I say uh let’s uh bring that poretta inside and uh we’ll bring the veggies and let’s plate this baby up all right let’s eat on a gas grill look at that in the daylight it’s even better mhm you want to rest it in here and carry the pan I got it that does it oh it smells good here we are we’re ready this thing looks amazing oh yeah oh my got it just it doesn’t only look at me we we need smell of vision right and look it’s it’s crunchy yeah so we’re going to take these skewers off of here then watch yourself here oh my god wow isn’t that Beau look and it’s juicy Y and and the oils have penetrated the herbs and they’re spreading out that so we’ve got the herbs and the herb oil now oh my God that is just a work of art beautiful that’s cooked perfectly you are a real Craftsman thank you this smells so good oh man you smell that fennel yeah I just pick one up and eat the whole thing yeah absolutely scoot it down well you got it that is a work of art beautiful now you see why I asked them to come in as guest stars here and U take over for this dish I’ve always wanted to learn how to do this dish because it is so spectacular and this is this is a a a company dish I mean you can do it just for yourself and your family but you serve this to the gang your friends uh your company your family your boss oh man it’s definitely an impressive dish very so we’re going to take this little pieces here oh me have these are are your delicious veggies from earlier now these veggies you recall sat underneath here so they got the pork drippings the flavor and they crisp I mean you can see they’re nice and brown and crisp they’re tender um well my goodness they’re delicious so you’re going to make a sandwich then mhm open face open face sorry I’m eting one of those delicious brussel sprouts we talk with food in our M right now so I’m just going to take a pce of this beautiful poretta put it on the baguette do a little drizzle of olive oil and then finish it off with just a little sprinkling make a couple of these cuz I know you you won’t well put a few down there put a few cuz the guys behind the cameras are drooling on their equipment they’re going to short them out now I would oil the bread then put the meat on top helps the cheese stick to the poretta oh okay there is a method to my madness yeah okay not just mad all right keep put that in there how she just taught me something all right how many do I have beautiful that potato I just nached was just so good it’s amazing the carrots the carrots carots yeah they’re super sweet how many of these would you like this technique works for rotisserie chicken um you could do a turkey this way uh it’s a great way to cook your vegetables let’s people the parmes is actually going to add a little bit of salt a little extra salt um and yeah who doesn’t love cheese okay well I’m going to take a piece um right off of the board here because I want to taste it naked first got string in there it’s amazing yeah be careful of the strings that you use to bind the poretta one piece I think I just ate some string and it was fabulous best string I’ve ever had oh the fat mhm belly it’s salty but it’s not too salty it’s got nice spice wow it’s got some really nice spice it’s got some cake it’s got that fennel that comes through gives you that sausage flavor should should should people at home try to you can’t I was going to say when I’m doing something that’s trusted up like a pork roast I try to get all the string off before I slice it but you can’t see it it’s buried down in there yeah all right so you just got to be careful you got to watch for pieces of string or use a brightly colored string that you can uh or you can always turn it upside down here and then you can see the string as well then where the knots are at a little bit easier then yeah show me or you just eat the damn string it tastes good I’m going for sandwich all right that’s phenomenal I think now you see why poretta is so popular in Italy and it’s got so many potential variations you can change all these herbs and spices the way you like them you can put raisins in it if you want we put sundried tomatoes in ours he does I’ve seen him do it with pistachio you can put whole garlic huge potential um and uh it’s absolutely fabulous and look at this for presentation wonderful dish thank you so much thank you for having me and if you’re in this te neck of the woods and you’re looking for a place to eat Chicago Culinary Kitchen and Palatine 11 to 11 to 2 Saturday and Sunday only yep thank you guys
