Cured Mangalitsa Products Class at Serious Pie

Me talking about Mangalitsa.
Photo by Sonja Groset

Serious Pie (a Tom Douglas restaurant) and Heath Putnam Farms did a class with Slow Food Seattle yesterday. Students started the process of making their lardo pancetta from Mangalitsa pigs. It takes time to make cured products, so they couldn't finish yesterday.

Students got to salt and herb their fatback and bellies. They took the lardo home, because all they have to do is stick it in their fridge to finish it. Serious Pie offered to dry out their bellies in their temperature and humidity-controlled tent, so people will pick that up later when it is done.

I provided a small neck so people could taste Mangalitsa. After I showed the students the raw neck, Kenan Fox, Serious Pie's curemaster cooked it up with a little salt and pepper so that people could eat some.

After making the products, Serious Pie fed people a multi-course lunch. Most courses had some Mangalitsa products. I recall cured neck, lardo and sausage. Most students thought the lardo pizza tasted the best. Hopefully they'll know what to do with their own lardo.

One nice thing the Serious Pie staff did was measure out the salt in advance. People got a few different containers of curing salt and regular salt for the belly and the fatback. That made things easy and stress-free.

Hopefully the word will get out that Serious Pie is serving really great fast food featuring cured Mangalitsa products.