There are now all kinds of delicious pork – pork has been experiencing something of a renaissance in recent years. Since the Ibérico, the wool pig and other old breeds of pigs have been able to show how pork can actually taste, pork has been on the plates more and more often, especially during the barbecue season.

My personal favourite is the Duroc pig. It is characterised by its tender and tasty meat and apparently has less fat than the “fashionable pig” Ibérico. Especially the way the fat is distributed is in my opinion better with the Duroc pig. Due to the fact that most of the fat here is intramuscular fat – in the case of beef one would speak of an ideal marbling of the meat – even parts that look rather lean are very juicy and have a surprisingly strong aroma. Here a direct comparison is worthwhile in any case.

Duroc pigs have a wine-red skin colour and are significantly hairier than, for example, the conventional German domestic pig. The origin of the breed cannot be traced back one hundred percent, but it is assumed that Duroc pigs originate from a 19th century crossbreed. According to records, Spanish Ibérico pigs were crossed with red Jersey pigs originating from America.

There are a handful of companies in Germany that offer Duroc pork. Here you can find not only METRO & CO but also the supermarket around the corner. In this case I used an online offer and ordered 1,6 kg pork loin from ESPAÑA ORIGINAL. The Duroc from ESPAÑA ORIGINAL is 100% Spanish Duroc, which is also affordable. The animals are bred near the Catalan National Park La Garrocha by a family business with decades of experience.

I had decided to grill half of the pork loin in one piece and the rest in slices. Why this? Well, on the one hand it is of course impossible to do without a freshly grilled Ducro steak, but on the other hand I already had a plan in the back of my mind what to do with the Duroc grilled in one piece.

Of course, before the grilling, the meat is only salted and “fogged” with some virgin olive oil. You can also use pepper – but it can burn quickly on the barbecue and possibly produce a bitter taste, so I almost always leave out the pepper in advance.

The grill – in my case a small Landmann (gas) – should be really hot, about 350 – 400°C would be a good base. If the grill has a lid, so much the better, because only in this way smoke and steam will settle sufficiently on the meat and thus provide the “real” grill taste.

In this case I cut 2-3 cm thick slices as steaks – I turned them four times to get a nice cross pattern. The grilling time for the steaks was about 8-10 minutes, whereby – very important – Duroc is NEVER grilled well-done. 93-97% are ideal here – the meat must still be juicy, otherwise you can also destroy pig “off the rack”…

I let the slices rest for about 2 minutes, so that the meat juice “retracts” a little bit and no “ridges” form on the plates when cutting. The steaks were super juicy and tasty – I even did without further salt, spices or sauces, because the inherent taste of this premium pork was breathtaking.

The grilling with ESPAÑA ORIGINAL 100% Spanish Duroc was a complete success – I can only recommend you to try it. What I “did” with the Duroc piece, is another story…

Have fun with the barbecue!