The Tail: the Chicken Wing of a Pig

Our menu has been changing a lot lately.  I like to think of it as an evolution.  We tweaked things going into ArtPrize, and now we're being hit with the end of summer and the transition into cold weather vegetables.  This is probably the last week for heirloom tomatoes, but the Brussels sprouts and cabbages and kales are coming in beautifully. 
With all these changes the one I am most excited about, that I tell everyone they have to try, that I brag to my distant relatives about is our deep fried pig tails.  Crispy skin, succulent sticky fat, and the porkiest bits of meat pulled right off those tiny little bones.  Just like a chicken wing but so much better, because it comes from a pig.
Some dishes spring fully formed directly from the head of our Zeus, Chef Matthew Millar.  This one bounced around a bit, picking up bits and pieces before it found it's home on our menu. 

1. Chef was excited about some naturally fermented soy sauce being made in Kentucky and aged in spent bourbon barrels. Bluegrass soy sauce
2. I was dying to buy some fish sauce I had heard of being made the traditional way on an island in Vietnam, simply black anchovies, salt, and time. Red Boat Fish Sauce  When I called to order it the owner of the company answered.  He told me he had come to the U.S. as a refugee in the late 60s and had never been able to find fish sauce as good as what he remembered back home.  Together with his uncles he started the company to produce and import "extra virgin" fish sauce.  If you like Southeast Asian food you really need to buy some of this.
3. I brought about a dozen deep fried pig's feet to Chef's birthday party this summer.  If you want an amazing meal, go to a chef's birthday party.
4. We had a growing collection of pig tails in our freezer from all of the whole hogs we had been butchering.

Chef put it all together.  First brine and then confit the tails, and finish with a 350 degree fry in our lard filled fryer.  The dipping sauce is made with the Bluegrass soy sauce, Red Boat fish sauce, raw garlic, sherry vinegar, riesling, honey, chili peppers, and some ground black pepper that Cuong, the owner of Red Boat Fish Sauce, sent us that is grown on an island in the waters where the anchovies are caught to make his sauce.
We have sold out of pig tails every week so far.  The farm who supplies us, Gunthorp Fams, just over the Indiana border, only slaughters so many hogs per week, and each one only has one tail. They deliver on Thursday so your best bet is to come on Friday night to get one.