Christmas is coming and our normal household of cooking for 2 will increase for a few days to cooking for 8. As Chief Cook and Bottle washer I obviously don't want to spend too many hours in the kitchen and there are meals that I find easy to pre-prepare and freeze and other meals that don't need too many hours of preparation before eating. One of those is a huge roast dinner and with that thought in mind when I was in Cadiar this morning I went to the pork butcher to buy a leg of pork.
He isn't only a pork butcher, there are 2 butchers in town and they both sell pork, chicken and rabbit. One always has beef as well but the 'pork' butcher has a picture of a pig outside and you can usually see one of the guys preparing the meat for sale. Butchers here don't do fancy displays, the joints are usually ready for preparing so no fancy artfully arranged meat or plastic parsley, and if you don't see what you want just ask.
There weren't any legs of pork that I could see so I asked....I need a leg, with skin but without the foot...
How big do you want?
About 8 or 9 kilos? It's for 8 people...
This paletilla is 7 kilos or this jamón is 14. Is it for the oven? It'll take a long time to cook but the jamón will be better as it's fatter.
Fatter is better as there is more flavour, but 14 is a bit too big, and how much per kilo?
2.95 for the paletilla and 3.10 for the jamón....I've another pig out the back, let me go and get it...
So off he went and came back with a pig on a trolley which he then de-back-legged (there is probably a more butchery term for what he did) and that weighed in at 11 kilos. Off came the foot, and we settled for that. A bit bigger than I was anticipating but there won't be any wastage.
It's in the freezer now waiting for a couple of weeks, I know I was early buying it but better to get it when you're near the shop than suddenly realise time is running out and find the butcher is shut or has sold the joints you want. Still to sort out the Xmas day turkey but there's time yet.
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