Went to Costco on Friday. They are indeed running these on special and I was impressed with the selection.
Mostly when I go to Costco, I'm almost always looking for pork belly among other things, but the last 6 months, even year, I've bought more pork belly than just about anything else. Usually I get to choose from somewhere between 4 and 9 bellies. I don't think I've ever seen more than a dozen out at once, and that's pretty rare. About half the time they'll have 8-10 out, but many times they only have about 4 or 5 - which is pretty disappointing, because I try to be pretty picky about my pork belly. I like big ones, but honestly, I'm more concerned about thickness and meat:fat ratio than about total weight. I try to get ones that are thicker, but have more meat, as well, like a 50/50 ratio if I can find it.
Anyways, on Friday evening they had 2 sections with pork belly in them, the first one had close to twenty, the second one back by the glass (where you can see in the butcher's area) had another dozen or so. Never seen that many.
However, I was a little disappointed in most of them. I look for a good meat/fat ratio all around, but also want them to have good uniform thickness (ideally) AND not have one side that is just all a giant layer of fat, with no real muscle. This was a hard combo to find, even with 30 or so of these bad boys about.
Anyways, I walked away with 2 of them - I had a 3rd one in the cart, but I put it back, as I was loaded down and thought along with the brisket and the ribs I had enough - doing a cook for some orders for office folks and friends this weekend.
Anyways, cooked 'em up yesterday, I have orders for 4 chunks, which will leave me with 2 chunks for myself (1/3 of a belly). I'm glad, I have been turning ALL my belly into bacon the last 5 months or so, and I have actually thought to myself a couple of times, "I wish I had some pork belly for this ramen," or whatever other dish I was making. But I've turned it all into bacon and have shorted myself on pork belly. So now I will have some for a good while. Those thirds I'll cut into halves or thirds again and separately freeze them.
Mostly when I go to Costco, I'm almost always looking for pork belly among other things, but the last 6 months, even year, I've bought more pork belly than just about anything else. Usually I get to choose from somewhere between 4 and 9 bellies. I don't think I've ever seen more than a dozen out at once, and that's pretty rare. About half the time they'll have 8-10 out, but many times they only have about 4 or 5 - which is pretty disappointing, because I try to be pretty picky about my pork belly. I like big ones, but honestly, I'm more concerned about thickness and meat:fat ratio than about total weight. I try to get ones that are thicker, but have more meat, as well, like a 50/50 ratio if I can find it.
Anyways, on Friday evening they had 2 sections with pork belly in them, the first one had close to twenty, the second one back by the glass (where you can see in the butcher's area) had another dozen or so. Never seen that many.
However, I was a little disappointed in most of them. I look for a good meat/fat ratio all around, but also want them to have good uniform thickness (ideally) AND not have one side that is just all a giant layer of fat, with no real muscle. This was a hard combo to find, even with 30 or so of these bad boys about.
Anyways, I walked away with 2 of them - I had a 3rd one in the cart, but I put it back, as I was loaded down and thought along with the brisket and the ribs I had enough - doing a cook for some orders for office folks and friends this weekend.
Anyways, cooked 'em up yesterday, I have orders for 4 chunks, which will leave me with 2 chunks for myself (1/3 of a belly). I'm glad, I have been turning ALL my belly into bacon the last 5 months or so, and I have actually thought to myself a couple of times, "I wish I had some pork belly for this ramen," or whatever other dish I was making. But I've turned it all into bacon and have shorted myself on pork belly. So now I will have some for a good while. Those thirds I'll cut into halves or thirds again and separately freeze them.
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