Mountain pig the Arctic way


 
Thank you for your kind comments. This was an easy cook, and as you all can see, I aimed for a cook that showed the real taste of the meat. I'm sure this would have been great wit a nice rub and sauce, as well. I'll try that later.

J.Biesinger- the heater is as you guessed, a 2000 watts element, with a extra pipe to pump air into the element with a aquarium air pump.

It can be found here: http://freshmealssolutions.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=70&Itemid=100083

I can recommend the SV- solution and the shop, fantastic service, and good quality. Thereare two big buts
-It is perfectly possible to make this setup self- destruct if you have noe clue of what you are doing. As an example- let it run dry, or power up the PID before adding water. For me that is just as stupid as using your car without any oil on the engine.
- The WAF is very low, with the cables, green parts and so on.

More expensive SV- equipment have thermostats and switches that turns the equipment off, as well as shiny steel exterior. This set does noe have any safety mechanisms, and I think the budget on design when it comes to looks is very low.

On the other hand, you can use your sink, a cheap ice chest or even your bathtub as a cooking chamber. I've seen a blog post where a guy cooked a whole pig suckling in his bathtub, 120 litres of water, isolated with ping-pong balls on top of the water.

I really hope I can get some more meat for the weekend.
 
I got hold of a couple of more pieces.

I had guests, and ran out of time, so the few pictures looks like the ones you have seen before. No plated picture as well, sorry. But the mountain pig is a keeper and a winner in my cooking repertoire. Fantastic quality, rich natural taste, and moist, tasty meat to die for!

So- this is a new cook, but IMHO not worthy of a new thread.

This is a bone-in ham, this cut slightly under four pounds. ( I also have piece of ribs and some chops frozen for later. Sadly, there are no more pigs left. I will have to wait until next year.





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Starters, Tiger shrimps marinated in unami paste and tiger sauce, served with heart salad and sushi rice.
Main course-
Served with beurre noisette, spiced with garlic, fresh basil, finely chopped walnuts, and roasted chrushed black peppers.
Sous vide carrots, got them right this time, one hour at 86 degrees C. Almost too sweet, I think, but my guests loved them!
Oven baked potatoes, and beer.

Dessert- Vanilla seed spiced crème fouettée with cloudberries. Espresso, made from fresh ground beans

Again, sorry, no pictures of the plated meal because of hungry guests.

Thank you for your time.
 
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That looks as good as any Black Iberian pork I've seen that they raise in Spain. I wonder if any Norwegian pork gets imported to America? We have bred all the fat out of our hogs. Is the Norwegian pork a very fatty animal or is it lean like our breeds? I know that the Spanish pork is famed for feeding off of the land instead of being fed what the owner decides they need to eat and that produces a fatter and much more flavorful hog. Most say it makes them taste a lot more of the wild area they live in and I bet the same would be true for this pork. It's claimed that the pork has the taste of the nuts and other forage they eat.

Seems a shame that Norwegian pork isn't as lauded as the Spanish variety looking at your meals though! Amazing stuff.
 
RCBaughn said:
That looks as good as any Black Iberian pork I've seen that they raise in Spain. I wonder if any Norwegian pork gets imported to America? We have bred all the fat out of our hogs. Is the Norwegian pork a very fatty animal or is it lean like our breeds? I know that the Spanish pork is famed for feeding off of the land instead of being fed what the owner decides they need to eat and that produces a fatter and much more flavorful hog. Most say it makes them taste a lot more of the wild area they live in and I bet the same would be true for this pork. It's claimed that the pork has the taste of the nuts and other forage they eat.

Seems a shame that Norwegian pork isn't as lauded as the Spanish variety looking at your meals though! Amazing stuff.
Click to expand...

Nowegian pigs are small, much smaller that the average slaughter weight in the US. A"normal" pig here is slaughtered at about just 300 pounds, and the meat part is about 50% of the weight. Also, the breeding of Norwegian pigs has gone from fat to lean as well, but this trend changed a few years ago, and they try to breed pigs with more fat marbling. I do not think there are any export of meat form Norway to the US, but I know that Norsvin (a company that sells pig semen) has had quite a sucess in exporting semen to the US. I am not familiar with details.

These so called "mountain pigs" are just the same as pigs that live in pens in buildings, the whole difference is that they are allowed to live up in the mountains during the summer.
A link from the national TV broadcasting service (yes, we do have that), translated with google translate, which does a reasonable good job, but far from perfect: http://translate.google.com/transla...distrikt/hedmark_og_oppland/1.8319174&act=url


Now, it would be wrong to say that Norwegian pork meat in general is considered first class.
I know that the meat is safe for eating, and I do not have to worry about listeria and salmonella. We do not need to worry about salmonella in any meats or eggs.
My experience is that "normal" lets say pork chops vary a lot in quality, and it is not so that the price will tell you what quality you are getting. You can buy quite expensive chops, treat them as best as you can, and end up with dry meat that tastes almost nothing, and vice versa.

Due to the size and the way they are treated, I must say that Spanish and Italian hams beats Norwegian hams. It cannot even be compared. Norwegian hams are small, injected with salt water to make themcure quicker, and they have a short resting period before they are sold, at all not like the more expensive Spanish relatives. This is changing as well, some Norwegian farmers have started to make hams of higher quality.

Enough Norwegian ranting. I'm glad you liked the pictures, and also, thank you for the undeserved praise of my cooking skills. This piece of meat practially prepared itself. I was just watching.
I still have a piece of ribs and some chops in the freezer. I will post those cooks, as well.
 
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