Get to know your Butcher on CBC's Weekend Morning Show

 This morning on CBC's Weekend Morning Show with interim host Laurie Hoogstraten, I am featuring a pork dish using pork buttons that I got from Denny's Meat Market.  This is a rather "old school" kind of cut of pork and many stores and butcher shops don't carry them any longer but these are so simple to prepare and a great value. 

I'm always telling people to get to know where they get their fish, vegetables and meats.  Getting to know your butcher is really recommended for your own interest.  They will give you a great deal of information on what you want or what you may try and they may specialize in products that you can't find anywhere else.  Denny's Meat Market, for example, also specializes in fresh sausages of a wide range of flavours.

For this dish, you can use the pork buttons, pork belly, or cuts for Kalbi.  For the vegetarians, this segment doesn't leave you out either.  You can use the marinade for seitan, tofu, eggplant, firm mushrooms or cauliflower.

Dwaejibulgogi (from Maangchi.com)

For the marinade :
½ cup of crushed Asian Pear
¼ cup onion purée (I put a yellow onion and the garlic in a small blender container with a bit of water and puréed it)
4 cloves of minced garlic
½ ts of minced ginger
1 chopped green onion
1 tbs soy sauce
2 tbs brown sugar
a pinch of ground black pepper
2 ts of toasted sesame oil
3 tbs hot Korean pepper paste (Kochujiang)

I used a package of pork buttons from Denny’s Meat Market.  I let them marinade for several hours.  You can then grill, broil or cook in a pan until tender.  Serve with rice, lettuce leaves, fresh chilies, green onions, or on their own as an appetizer.

Enjoy!