Meat cuts · Czech cuisine
Pork shoulder
The upper foreleg of the pig around the blade bone – all-round meat for roasts, goulash and vepřo knedlo zelo.
At a glance
- Cut
- Front of the side: upper foreleg around the blade and upper arm bone, below the collar and above the front hock.
- Production
- Bone-in, or boneless and rindless; one part is ramínko.
- Use
- Roasting, braising, goulash, roast pork.
- Substitutes
- Collar.
Where on the animal
Pork
- Shoulder
An approximate diagram; butchers divide the carcass in slightly different ways from country to country.
The shoulder is the upper part of the foreleg of the pork side, around the shoulder blade and upper arm bone. Above it lies the collar, below it the front hock, separated at the elbow. It is sold bone-in or boneless and rindless; one part is called ramínko.
Like the collar, shoulder suits many methods. With lean pork it is better braised or roasted, because lean shoulder turns rubbery when fried owing to its higher collagen content; fattier shoulder is more tender. Ramínko suits roasting as well as quick pan cooking.
The US picnic shoulder roughly matches the lower shoulder, while the upper part with the collar is sold as Boston butt. In German it is Schweineschulter, Bug or Blatt, and Schäufele is also cut from it; in Austria it is roasted as Schweinsbraten.
Recipes
Menus
Techniques and tips
Related entries
Sources
- Sdružení českých spotřebitelů a Česká technologická platforma pro potraviny: Jak poznáme kvalitu? Hovězí a vepřové maso (2012)
- USDA AMS: Institutional Meat Purchase Specifications – Fresh Pork, Series 400 (2014)
- AHDB: Meat Purchasing Guide (2019)
- top agrar: Schweinefleisch – alle Teilstücke nutzen (2023)
- ichkoche.at: Was muss ich beim Schweinefleischeinkauf beachten?
- AT Verlag: Leseprobe eines Kochbuchs über Second Cuts von Rind, Kalb und Schwein, mit Bezeichnungen für Deutschland, Schweiz und Österreich (2018, ISBN 978-3-03800-082-2)