The first-year students of Culinary Management at the Girona School of Hospitality and Tourism have started working with aged pork, a product that has not yet been incorporated into the usual offering of Girona restaurants. The initiative is being developed at the school with the participation of researchers and companies from the meat sector.
The project is carried out in collaboration with IRTA researchers Núria Panella and Anna Jofré. From this joint work, a technical guide is being prepared, focused on the reception, preparation, and maintenance of matured pork, with the aim of organizing its treatment in the kitchen and facilitating its future professional application.
Recipes prepared by the students
The guide will also collect the recipes developed by the students of the EHT of Girona, who have worked on different culinary possibilities with this type of meat. Among the techniques applied are smoking, marinating, the preparation of ceviche and the preparation of terrines.
"They have given us the meat and we have worked to explore what we could do" - Jordi Parés, professor of the EHT
The meat companies Batallé, Sivill Milà and Capdevila Germans have been responsible for supplying the raw material with which the tests and preparations have been carried out in the classroom and in the school's restaurant.
A product still little implanted in Girona
The use of aged pork continues to be uncommon in Girona's restaurant industry. In this context, the school and IRTA are working to provide a technical basis for the product and study its gastronomic possibilities from training.
"It has lost moisture, but it has gained in protein and fat, and this gives it more special aromas and flavor" - Jordi Parés, professor of the EHT
Last Thursday at noon, the school restaurant served one of the proposals that emerged from this process. It was a matured pork loin with spider crab cream and fig sauce with Pedro Ximénez, a preparation that is part of the culinary tests promoted by the first-year students within this project.