BBQ Iberico Presa

There are some cuts of meat that become infamous within BBQ’ing and meat loving society, such as the Tomahawk, brisket, St Louis ribs, one of the cuts I have always wanted to grace my grill is the majestic Iberico Presa.

Iberico pork hails from wonderful free range Spanish pigs, that live off acorns and grass, giving a wonderful nutty flavour and buttery delicious fat that melts in your mouth, the meat is dark and rich with marbling. The presa is a cut from the shoulder, and a wonderful thick fat veined cut of pork. It has won a 3 star Great Taste Award 2016. I was itching to get this over some coals. I was sent the Iberico presa by Basco Fine Foods to try, and was advised to cook like a beef steak to medium rare.  This is more unusual for a lot of people as they wouldn’t consider a medium rare pork steak. But I have seen the light..

I wanted to cook the presa as simply as I could over a gentle charcoal grill to crisp up the fat on the outside and to cook gently through. I set up my grill with a hot side and a cooler side by dragging the established charcoal bed across the bbq. I seasoned very simply with coarse sea salt genrously pressed in to the fat and meat. I placed the presa on the grill on the hot side and seared off the outside until the fat had crisped up lovely.

I then moved the presa to the less fierce heat side of the grill to roast slowly over the charcoal embers, seasoning with a little more coarse sea salt and some fresh ground black pepper. I cooked slowly, it took around 40 minutes for this 1 kg to reach an internal temperature of 53c. I then rested the presa and the internal reached a perfect 55 deg C medium rare due to thermal carryover. I then sliced thick juicy slices of the presa and sprinkled the slices with a little more sea salt.

The flavour and succulence was outstanding, you could taste every drop of that buttery fat, I had pork juices dripping down my chin as I dived into this with a couple of mates. I have never tasted any pork as good as this… the fat was one thing, but the nutty almost beefiness of the meat was the thing that propelled my tastebuds heavenward.

If you want a truly special cut of meat to try then I can heartily recommend this, I will be going back for sure.

If you want to try this outstanding cut, then you can pick this Iberico presa up for £27.50 for a 1kg slab from Basco Fine Foods. Bargain….next up I want to try the secreto…

I was sent the Iberico Presa from Basco whole foods for free to enjoy and come up with a recipe for.