Pendle Hill Meat Market brings home the bacon
Pendle Hill Meat Market brings home the bacon like no other place. Take a behind-the-scenes look at one of Australia’s biggest butcheries.
Pendle Hill Meat Market brings home the bacon like no other place.
As we usher in the Year of the Pig, we’re squealing with delight to go behind the scenes of this local landmark, one of the Australia’s biggest butcheries.
No porkies — from the oversized pies to the pork belly and crackle, it’s Australia’s best butcher. And the pies at its bakery are insanely delicious.
Each week, between 100 and 150 pigs are raised at Charlie Zammit’s Southern Highlands farm specifically for the butcher and created into products, from indulgencies (hello pork belly) to traditional cuts.
Hams that most of us indulge in for Christmas are available all year. The butcher orders 600 pigs over December for Christmas trading.
Bulking up on pellets, the pigs are raised until they’re between 18 and 20 weeks old and weigh 75kg.
“That’s their optimum weight,’’ store manager Scott Lee said.
“You can grow them longer to be bigger but we only want 75kg.
They’re then dispatched to the Bungaree Rd emporium, minced, sliced or rolled for meatlovers.
“It’s lean,’’ Lee said.
“A lot of the dietary facts are saying get some pork on your fork because it’s leaner than beef.”
Pork loin chops and Scotch fillets are the biggest sellers. Asian-style pork neck steak, American style spare ribs, pork bones, legs of pork, honey soy American ribs stuff the display cabinet.
On Saturdays, PHM’s pick-up counter is a ritual before sports volunteers and Bunnings staff fire up the barbecue. Punters travel as far as Penrith and Gordon to get a wholesale price for snags.
Lee says five bulk orders on a Saturday would be a slow day.
“Some get 100kg, others get 80kg,’’ he said.
The delicatessen sells delicious cooked pork belly while Lee is keen to point out the bacon rashers.
“Bacon goes with everything; potato salads, fried rice,’’ he said.
Like most butchers, Lee is partial to a barbecue. When the steak hits the barbie, he recommends cooking it three quarters of the way through before turning it.
With pork spare ribs, he cooks the skin first to get it crackling and turns it over for five minutes on each side.
Alongside pig carcass, cattle, also raised in the Southern Highlands with an average weight of 250kg, hangs in the 2C coolroom.
Up to 50 cows are delivered to Pendle Hill each week.
Poultry is raised on a different farm and the market sells up to 400kg of chicken breast a day.
From 6am, the team is knifing, dissecting and mincing meat ready for purchase.
On the same premises, the staff at Calypso Bakery Cafe are up before dawn making their legendary pies.
Joseph and Miriam Portelli, and their youngest son Joseph, begin churning out 200 pies a day from 4am.
Joseph junior traded the plush digs of a la carte at the Four Seasons Hotel where he worked for several years before joining the family business.
He landed several awards but wanted to work with family and better working hours.
“It’s much more fun as well,’’ he said.
“Being Maltese as well, everything is pastry.
“It all takes time, it’s a long process as well.”
As his dad believes, there is no half-baked philosophy to pies.
“I think the secret is a good recipe, good ingredients and no short cuts,’’ he said.
The team, including cook Ben Chen and pie maker Sazal Alam, cook 10kg worth of filling for an hour and cook them for 11 minutes.
Short crust pastry encases pies while puff pastry provides a flaky canape.
The bakery sells 200 sausage rolls each day.
“The filling is what we do first think in the morning, using fresh products,’’ Joseph senior said.
“We put herbs, we put wine.”
“We do everything by hand. Sometimes these companies that have pies use big machines. Machines don’t always get it right.”
The potato pies are seriously stacked.
“We make it so it’s a meal in itself,” Joseph senior said.
“For that reason, people have it for lunch, it’s quite filling. We do our best to make a good product.”
Leave no doubt, you’ve succeeded.
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