Iberico Presa with salsa roja

Iberico is perhaps the best pork you can find, and Presa is then one of the three cuts that are not available with other breeds of pigs. The Presa is the thickest of these, and therefore it is excellent for preparing as a steak.

To honour this beautiful piece of meat, we have prepared a delicious snack that you can also serve as an appetizer.

Iberico Presa is a unique piece of meat that sits between the pig’s shoulder and neck. It is not unique because every pig has it, but it is cut separately at Iberico pigs.

It is wonderfully tender and beautifully marbled. This gives it that specific taste that you expect from Iberico. Therefore, it does not need much more than salt and pepper. We season the meat 45 minutes in advance while we light the barbecue.

In those 45 minutes, the salt is absorbed into the meat, and the pepper will stick to the meat due to the extracted moisture. That’s physics for you.

We are going to prepare this beautiful meat with the reversed sear method. Then we first heat the meat indirectly to about 60ºC (140F) and then grill it over direct heat. We do this to serve as much of the Presa medium rare as possible. If you immediately start grilling, you will still get a significant edge off the meat well-done, and that would be a shame.

With the divide and conquer system of the Kamado Joe classic, you can divide the kamado however you want. In this case, we place the accessory rack with one half of the plate setter on top and both grids above it. This way, you have made two zones in the fastest way.

To monitor this, we insert a probe of the Smoke thermometer into both pieces of meat. We close the lid, and we and the receiver go inside. We love to barbecue but love it when you let the grill do the work.

When the desired core temperature has been reached, you can sear the steak. You have to keep an eye on it while you grill it. On the one hand, because it goes very quickly and on the other hand because the fatty Iberico meat can cause large flames. Very cool to show but a shame if you burn the meat as a result.

After the meat has rested, we cut it, and we are rewarded with beautiful medium-rare Iberico. You can also eat pork medium-rare, especially if it is quality meat. We serve the Iberico on a piece of naan with some herbed butter, a generous scoop of salsa Roja and some feta.

Are you going to try this Iberico Presa too, let us know in the comments below. Or better! Take a photo and post it on Instagram. Tag @bbq.heroes so we can see what you made.