HOW TO BUTTERFLY A PORK LOIN
Of course, you can simply ask your butcher to butterfly the loin for you, but if you’re short a butcher, or feeling the need to sharpen your knife skills, it’s easy enough to do yourself:
o First, choose pork that is bright pink and has no noticable odor. Gray, smelly meat is not a good sign. In a grocery, the loin will probably be tied into a roast. Snip,remove and discard the butcher’s twine, open the meat flat and place it on a cutting board.
o Hold a sharp carving knife flat, with the blade parallel to the cutting board, and make a lengthwise cut into the center of the loin, stopping an inch or so short of the opposite edge and keeping the two pieces of meat attached at the center.
o Open the loin as you would a book, cover it with plastic wrap or parchment paper, and use a meat pounder, rolling pin or heavy pan to pound it lightly to an even thickness. You are now ready to proceed with your recipe, or to refrigerate the loin until you want to use it. If you do the latter, let it return to room temperature before going forward.
It used to be necessary to cook pork thoroughly because of the stomach parasite trichinosis that once was common in raw or undercooked pork products. Thankfully, trichinosis has been virtually eradicated in commercial pork, and the roughly 11 cases now reported in the United States annually usually are contracted from wild game. So, as long as you buy fresh pork from a reputable source, you won’t have to grill it to the point of charcoal.
