Posted on

Carne-Val at The Meatwave – Delicious Pork Barbecue in Astoria

Last Sunday I attended a wonderful Astoria event series, The Meatwave. It’s run by local Astorian Josh Bousel, who really knows his meat and how to cook it. He (and probably his wife, Kristin) comes up with clever titles, and the one for this particular day was “Carne-val.”

There was pulled pork, pepper vinegar barbecue sauce, ribs, chicken—all grilled and/or barbecued. Plus there was a delicious mustard slaw, plenty of beer, and one of the guests offered me one of her s’mores bars. It was all so good and I’m glad I went.

Here are some of the things I ate. First, the pork in two states—whole and pulled. Here’s the before:

foiled-pork-barbecue-the-meatwave-astoria-queens

And the after:

shredded-foiled-pork-barbecue-the-meatwave-astoria-queens

Josh used big black rubber gloves to shred it by hand. He then poured some sort of liquid on it—probably braising liquid, which helped to keep it moist. This batch of meat was cooked in foil. There was another chunk of pork he had cooked without foil, which promised great bark. All I know is that they was truly delicious and made for a great pulled pork sandwich. Here it is—on a appropriately squishy Martin’s Potato Roll—with the aforementioned slaw.

pulled-pork-sandwich-vinegar-mustard-slaw-the-meatwave-astoria-queens

The ribs were great, too! I believe they were in the smoker and then grilled with a sweeter barbecue sauce. I loved the texture and taste.

barbecued-ribs-the-meatwave-astoria-queens

I did not get a chance to try any of the chicken, though.

As for the weather, it was damn hot, the beginning of a seven-day heatwave. I sweated buckets and was happy to find myself in the air conditioning afterwards; we headed to MOMI to catch a movie, then over to a nearby pub for more A/C, conversation, and project planning—more on that later. And since we were there on the early side, it was nice to have a chance to chat with our hosts.

Thanks to Josh and Kristin for a delicious afternoon!

Posted on

Pastured Pulled Pork

Recently, I had the opportunity learn a bit about butchering a pig – how to take it apart and turn it into the various cuts you see in the market (or at the farmer’s market). A friend who has excellent knife skills and some butchering experience led the workshop, and was really great about explaining what the different cuts were.

We lucked out and had half a local pastured pig for the workshop, and I was also fortunate to be able to take home a piece of the shoulder cut, a boneless blade roast. This roast had quite the fat layer on it.

pork blade roast

Make that a delicious fat layer. Over the many hours it cooked, the fat basted the meat – and some dripped into the pan, leaving me some wonderful lard for future cooking.  Then there was the disintegration of any connective tissue during the long roasting process, making for meat that really just fell apart. It was a truly tasty transformation.

But first, I created a marinade for the meat.

pork marinade

In it was garlic, oregano, salt, ground grains of paradise, citrus juice, apple cider vinegar, and a little bit of bacon fat (for viscosity). I used grains of paradise – a species in the ginger family with a peppery flavor – because I ran out of regular black pepper.

After I created the marinade, I put it on the meat and let it sit for an hour in a glass pan, covered in plastic wrap, in the fridge, and then 30 minutes on the counter, warming up a bit.

Continue reading “Pastured Pulled Pork”