Brought to you by America's Pig Farmers.
So the first place of my very own was an 18-seat restaurant that was just my wife and my own.
My father and my cousin and I built the place, built the bar, built the seats.
It was really humble, but it was my place, and it was a great learning experience.
What did you learn?
I learned how to not build a bar.
I'm not a carpenter, so that was the first thing I learned to hire a carpenter next time I build a bar.
Right.
This is The Sporkful, or should I say The Porkful?
Either way, it's not for foodies, it's for eaters.
I'm Dan Pashman.
Each week on our show, we obsess about food to learn more about people.
Delicious.
This week we're celebrating the end of summer and ringing in fall tailgating season with a barbecue featuring three different cuts of pork ribs, pork chops and bratwurst.
Call it a porkapalooza, if you will.
But I'm actually not doing the cooking.
For that, I brought in a heavy hitter.
Jimmy Chinnis.
I'm executive chef at Swallow Kitchen and Cocktails and Green Lawn.
And also the owner of Lucello Pizza.
As well, across the street.
Jimmy's restaurants are some of my favorites, not just in the area of Huntington, New York, where we both live, but anywhere on Long Island.
Thank you.
I appreciate that.
Jimmy's actually the one hosting this barbecue.
We're at his house on the North shore of Long Island.
It's a bungalow on a hill with a wraparound porch overlooking the water.
The sun is shining.
It's a perfect afternoon to light the grill.
The ribs going on the grill.
Oh, that's so pretty.
The ribs need about two hours on the grill.
We do have other dishes to cook, but we got some time.
So I wanna take a few minutes to dive into Jimmy's story, which I actually don't know much about, even though I've eaten at his restaurants many times.
I wanna hear about his evolution as a chef, some of his favorite dishes that he's ever created, and why he left prestigious gigs in New York City and the Hamptons to open his own neighborhood restaurant in the suburbs.
How'd you decide to become a chef?
So food was always around me in my house.
Cooking was a big part of my family growing up.
There was always big family meals around holidays.
Every night my mom cooked something different on the table.
But I never really thought of it as a career until later on in life.
When you graduated from high school, what did you think you were going to do?
What were you into?
I was always into creative.
I'm a musician.
I'm an artist.
And food kind of goes hand in hand with that.
But I thought I was going to go into... advertising, believe it or not.
And I went to a year of college for that and kind of realized it wasn't for me.
And when I came home, my mother and I had a conversation and she said, why don't you just cook?
You love to cook, cook.
And the rest is history.
So when your mom said you should go cook.
Like, did you have a doubt?
Was there any hesitation?
No, it was quite the opposite.
It was a light bulb went off.
You know, this was early, late 80s, early 90s.
I don't even know if the Food Network was around.
So it wasn't this famous chefs everywhere.
Being a chef wasn't glamorous.
It wasn't cool.
And it wasn't glamorous.
It was 80-hour weeks for I can't tell you how many years.
But a light bulb went off and I said, oh my gosh, that's what I want to do and that's what I will do.
Have you ever questioned it since then?
Yeah.
I mean, of course.
Because of the 80-hour nights back in my 20s and, you know.
Right.
But I loved it.
And my goal was always to be a restaurateur and have my vision, my design, my food out there to the people.
So that's what drove me through those 80-hour weeks.
While Jimmy was in culinary school in New York City, he got a job cooking at a restaurant called O'Neill's.
I started on salad station, worked my way up and, you know, ended up being on saute and Le Cirque.
Le Cirque, that's like legendary fine dining establishment.
Very scary experience, but also learned a lot.
What was scary about it?
Well, just that name.
The Macchionis were the family at that time, you know, and cereal was the head of the family.
He used to walk through the kitchen and it was like the general was there.
You know, we were all standing attention.
He would come and look at your cuts of vegetables if they were perfect and he would taste your sauce and make sure it was good.
And, you know, it was intimidating, but it was, you know, it was legendary.
It was really, really cool.
What was one major thing you learned there?
The system, the brigade system it's called as far as everyone has their spot and everyone's responsible for their part of the dish as a team, you know.
But what I learned, you know, personally was hard work, dedication to the craft.
It's not something that happens overnight.
You're not going to become a famous chef or even call myself a chef until 20 years in, because there's so much to learn and so many things you have to do to get that title.
It was really a long journey, but I loved it.
But you knew early on you wanted to have your own place.
I did.
Again, being a creative person, I kind of always wanted my vision to be out there.
I knew at the time in my 20s.
I may not have had my you know my vision honed, but I always knew that eventually, when I got the experience, I would have something to say in the culinary world.
And I think it's been good so far.
I think that's true with a lot of creative pursuits is like you're young.
You feel like I know I want to be creative, but I don't really know what my style is.
I don't know what my thing is.
So I feel like early on you imitate yourself.
Yeah, sure.
Like you imitate the things that you love.
Absolutely.
Well, it's funny you say that because so my first executive chef position was at a restaurant in New Hampshire, actually.
I was working as a cook in a restaurant called the Grand Havana Room on 666 Fifth Avenue, for a well-known chef.
And it was like a famous little movie star restaurant.
And this woman came and asked my friend and I to go run her restaurant in New Hampshire.
I had no clue what I was doing.
You know, I copied every recipe.
I didn't make one original dish then.
I had a dish from culinary school.
I had a dish that we made at my first restaurant.
So, you know, it was cheating, but it was also what I knew, you know.
I knew they were good dishes, so I used them.
And then eventually, slowly, I got my own dishes.
I got my confidence.
I got the knowledge.
You know, it's mostly confidence, I think, especially being creative, whether you're an artist, your confidence to put yourself and your painting on the plate, whatever it is.
So once I developed my confidence, I knew I would be okay.
Do you remember a dish that you created when you were like oh, I just crossed over from imitating other people to putting my own stamp on something.
I've done a lot of things with mushrooms.
This mushroom toast I have on the menu now has become pretty legendary.
Oh, man, it is legendary.
I don't ever go in to swallow and not order the mushroom dish.
Yeah, so that was one I came up with early.
Now it's a little more refined and a little more detailed.
What is it?
Describe it to people.
So the mushroom toast is we have a beautiful fresh-baked ciabatta bread every day.
It gets baked for us and brought in.
We grill that and rub that with mascarpone cheese.
And then we saute mushrooms, like three different mushrooms, shiitakes, portobellos, and creminis.
We deglaze the pan with cognac, little stock, little cream, charred kale and we cook that all down.
Little butter at the end and it just goes on top of the toast.
It's just a magical combination.
It's like decadent but also fresh at the same time.
It's bonkers.
It's a good one.
So that was – I came up with that a while ago again in its form.
So that was like one of my –
I'm proud of that one.
Right.
And that was kind of a moment that you were like, oh, like I've gone to the next level.
Yeah, I have a voice, you know.
Once Jimmy had honed his voice, he decided it was time to open his own place called Swallow.
Like the bird.
This was the precursor to the swallow he has now.
It was in Huntington Village, near where he lives.
It's a destination town for the area, with lots of shops, restaurants and a big venue for music and comedy.
That first iteration of Swallow had just 18 seats.
It was just simple, you know.
My rule was like three or four ingredients.
I would use the freshest I could.
I had a beekeeper that would give me honey.
I had a friend that was making cheese.
So I was trying to do as much as I can locally.
It's very hard to do that 100, but I was just trying to be simple and let the food speak, and it developed into what Swallow is now, which is just a palette for creativity.
Then Jimmy opened a second Swallow in Montauk, all the way at the end of Long Island by the Hamptons.
Which was huge, 130 seats or something like that, and was a monster.
Talk about jumping in feet first, but it was really cool.
A lot of hard work, but people still talk about it.
A few years ago we closed it down, but we still hear people say that they loved it, and that's what really means something to me.
Jimmy closed the Montauk location a few years ago because the two-hour commute each way was just too much.
He also closed the one in Huntington Village and moved it to Greenlawn, one town over, which is where it is now.
This is my favorite swallow.
I love them all obviously, but we always want it to be kind of a neighborhood restaurant, a neighborhood's restaurant.
And in Huntington, you know, there's 60 other restaurants there.
Montauk, there's 60 other restaurants there.
Touristy place.
Greenlawn's our home.
My kids go to school there.
We live here.
We know everyone that comes in.
There's three restaurants, all good restaurants, and we're in a neighborhood which I always wanted it to be.
Tons of regulars just come in to have a glass of wine and an appetizer.
They come in for special occasions.
We do parties for them.
So it's like, you know, we're part of that little community, Greenlawn, and I absolutely love it.
I don't know that I've ever been to Swallow and Greenlawn and not run into someone I know.
Exactly.
It feels like the hometown spot.
Exactly what we were going for.
There's some folks who are such regulars that we've run into them at Swallow multiple times.
Exactly.
It's true.
I'm like, do you guys ever eat at home?
Yeah.
No, we love that.
We're honored to be that to people.
We love that they support us.
In Huntington, we did some really cool stuff that I was really proud of.
But I think now we've brought it back to basics.
Really good technique, really good ingredients, food that makes sense.
I'm really proud of what we're doing now because it shows the evolution of where I've come as a chef.
So what's an example of a dish on the menu now that you feel like is an indication of your evolution.
Yeah.
You know, grilled peaches burrata honey, olive oil simple delicious classic, you know, but like easy.
Anyone can do that.
But we did it right.
We do the right amounts of things.
And it's like, I don't have anything to prove.
I know it tastes good.
It's going to look beautiful.
So it's kind of like that.
I'm cooking for me and the people.
Right, right.
So I feel like so many dishes I see on menus, it's like there's always one ingredient too many.
And I'm like man, if you just took off that one thing.
People are trying to get attention and they're trying to be clever.
Totally.
When I was younger, I probably was guilty of that.
I think that happens with chefs and it's hard to censor yourself.
So I agree.
When I go out to certain restaurants, I'm always like, there's no need for this.
It sounds good to have huckleberries on something, but maybe it doesn't go in this dish.
Coming up, Jimmy tells me how he makes some of the pork dishes on his menu, including a completely insane pork ragu that he sometimes serves with Cascatelli.
Then later, we finish cooking and eat.
Stick around.
As I said, this episode is sponsored by the National Pork Board, which is very exciting for me because I love pork.
I especially love its versatility.
No matter what kind of dish you're trying to make, no matter what you're in the mood for, there's always going to be a cut of pork that's perfect for that situation.
Of course, I love bacon.
I love a slice of pepperoni pizza.
But that's just the beginning.
I love a roast pork tenderloin, maybe marinated in some soy sauce and sesame oil and ginger.
I love pork chops on the grill.
You can juice up your cookout with tangy grilled ribs.
We didn't even get to ribs.
Oh, ribs.
Oh, I do love some baby back ribs.
You can have pork with any kind of flavor, nuance, or taste that you like.
Sweet, salty, acidic, umami.
You can enhance any meal with pork.
It's an easy decision because it's very easy to get your hands on some pork.
It's everywhere.
So bring flavorful moments to your everyday life.
Pork is here.
Grill it, bake it, braise it, roast it, sear it, but most importantly, taste it.
Brought to you by America's pig farmers.
Head to tastewhatporkcando.com to discover all the incredible flavors in every bite of pork.
Welcome back to The Sporkful.
I'm Dan Pashman.
So my friend Chef Jimmy Chinnis, and I are at his house where we're cooking up three kinds of pork for the barbecue of my dreams.
Well, all right, to be fair, Jimmy's cooking.
I'm mostly providing moral support.
The ribs are on the grill and Jimmy's turning them over every 10 or 15 minutes.
All right, let's check in on the ribs.
First of all, an audio check-in.
Sounds amazing.
Jimmy, how are the ribs looking?
You see they're caramelizing a little bit.
We're going slow, otherwise they would be a little browner than we'd like.
So these are perfect.
They're cooking really nice right now.
Giving them a little touch.
The meat's starting to break down a little.
They're going to be absolutely perfect.
Looks amazing.
While the ribs await their next flip, Jimmy and I keep chatting and we turn our attention to the pork dishes on the menu at his restaurant, starting with his pork belly tacos.
So we actually confit the whole entire pork belly.
Anytime you confit something, it means cooking it in some kind of fat.
In this case, we're cooking it in olive oil and a little bit of pork fat.
You can confit tomatoes in olive oil.
So it's cooking something very slow in fat, which, believe it or not, draws some of the fat out.
After we let it chill, we cut it up and we sear it in a pan and we put a nice Vietnamese vinaigrette on the top of it, with some pickled carrots, some cilantro, some radish.
It's a simple dish, but pork belly is, talk about my favorite pork, that's my favorite pork.
Yeah.
In bacon form, in belly form, whatever you want to do with it, pork belly's it for me.
And we also do a pork ragout in the fall.
That'll be coming back soon.
That's one of those dishes we do bring back.
We take the pork shoulder and we braise it in red wine and mirepoix, which is carrots, celery and onion, and tomato sauce and bay leaf and all these good things.
And we cook it for about two to three hours till it's shredding.
And we take that sauce and we toss it with some homemade pappardelle.
That's become one of our signature pork dishes at the restaurant.
There was a period, Jimmy, where there was a different pasta you were serving with that pork ragu.
Oh, my goodness.
Well, the cascatelli is perfect for that dish.
It's hard to get.
It's sold out everywhere I go.
Yeah.
Luckily, I know somebody.
We'll see what we can do.
But that was a good combo.
That was great.
When you featured that.
Yeah, we actually might.
That's funny.
I'm glad you brought that up.
I think in honor of this, I owe it to you.
All right.
I'll make sure you get some.
Okay, deal.
All right.
I got to get you a garage.
Is that where we hold it?
Yeah.
I mean, first of all, that ragu is bananas.
That's a good one.
What makes it so... You just described all the ingredients.
Those are the ingredients in probably 100 million ragus all over the planet.
But it's just so perfectly savory.
It's a little bit acidic and a little bit sweet and a little bit fatty and a little bit bright.
So it's just about doing things the right way cutting the pork to the right size, searing it in the pan, so on all sides, so you get lots of caramelization and color, and then those bits left in the bottom of the pan get deglazed with wine so there's more flavor.
It's layering flavor after flavor after flavor, and just you know, taking good care to do all the little things right is what makes it good.
Man, i'll eat that ragu with any pasta shape.
What about the nom nom noodles?
Oh, that's another good porky dish.
So that's a play on a Chinese dish that I love called nom nom noodles, which uses ground pork, and you know Vietnamese sauce with chilies and Szechuan peppercorns, and you know lots of stuff.
And it's my favorite dish, but I wanted to do my take on it.
So we use pork shoulder for that and break it down, shred it.
And we make our own vinaigrette that we toss in the pan with the pork.
It comes with noodles, a little bok choy.
It's just like my take on a Chinese noodle dish, but it's one of our more popular ones.
And it's got that like savory soy sauce plus vinegar thing going that I just love.
Exactly.
Me too.
Spice, sweet, vinegar.
Love those flavors.
Brightness.
Talk to me about pork's versatility.
Yeah.
Because that I feel like is something that makes it special.
Absolutely.
It's the most versatile meat in my book.
You know, as far as cuisines, the Chinese use it.
Southern barbecue use it.
Germans grind it and make sausage.
You can do so much with it.
It goes with red wine, white wine, tomato sauces, butter sauces, whatever you want to do.
There's a cut of pork that can be used for anything, I feel.
It's such a mild, sweet meat that it kind of goes with everything.
All right, Jimmy, time for a hot take.
What do you think is the most underrated cut of pork?
Ooh.
Underrated pork cut.
Well, I think it is those tough cuts if I can repeat myself with the pork shoulder or pork butt, because you know you can't just cook that on a grill.
You can't slice it and saute it.
It'll be like leather, you know, because it's muscular.
You need to treat it the right way.
So I think those cuts...
Other ones.
If you just break it down, sear it and simmer it really slow in anything, those are so, so flavorful and they come out really tender when you braise them.
So I would go with those tougher cuts.
My personal pick, pork shank.
Oh, a good call.
Another one.
You have to slow and low, but what flavor?
Because of that big bone and the area of the leg it's from.
It's delicious.
It's also oftentimes less expensive than maybe other meats you would braise.
Absolutely.
It's an unsung hero.
I love it.
People, I think, avoid that as well because they just don't know what to do with it.
But, like you said, pork shank and white wine, oh my God and some herbs and garlic and some thyme and some rosemary bay leaf again.
It's killer.
Yeah.
I mean, I love a braise.
Me too.
But especially, like you know as we get into fall a braise, whether you're having people over for dinner, even if you'll be sitting outside, maybe still depending on where you live, if it's a tailgate.
You braise up some of that, whether it's pork shoulder, pork butt, pork shank.
You can braise it the day before or that morning.
As it sits and all the flavors melt together, it's better the next day.
And it's one of those soul-warming dishes.
You're at a tailgate somewhere, freezing in the parking lot.
You swallow that down.
That warms you to the bone.
That's right.
It's like a touch of home.
It's also just practical if you need to take a meal to a tailgate, or if you're going to someone else's house, or if you just don't want to be cooking the whole time.
Your friends are there.
You do that braise the day before.
Just put a little flame on it.
You can even throw it in the pot on the grill.
Totally.
Heat it up.
Maybe you bring some bread to make sandwiches.
Maybe you pull it apart.
Maybe you throw it in tacos.
There's so much you can do.
Exactly right.
It's versatile.
I'm getting hungry now.
Me too.
Jimmy, what's the plan here tonight?
What's going on?
We're sitting out on your porch.
We've got this beautiful view of the water.
What's happening?
It's Porkapalooza tonight, is what I'm calling it.
We have the back ribs on the grill.
We're marinating our pork chops.
We actually got some really nice sausages as well.
We're going to grill them up.
We've got a few classic sides.
We have some friends coming over.
I think we're just going to have a nice, fun night and hang out and eat lots of delicious pork.
Oh, my God.
I can't wait.
I can't, too.
What are the sides you got for us?
I went to the farmer's market in Huntington the other day and I found some beautiful tomatoes peaches, corn.
So we're going to do some corn with maybe a little spice rub on it.
I made a beautiful potato salad from local potato sumay.
I put a little Dijon in, a little vinegar, a little mayo, a little scallion.
Really nice potato salad.
I'm going to do a tomato and peach salad.
Oh.
Yeah, it's going to be really good with some honey and some... olive oil.
I'm very happy to hear that you put mustard in your potato salad.
I feel like that's absolutely crucial to a good potato salad.
Agreed.
Well, if you just put mayo, it's just going to be Mustard's, one of those ingredients that go in most salad dressings.
When we make salad dressings, mustard's always an ingredient, number one for its binding properties but number two for the acid.
And you know you don't want it to be overly mustardy, but it's one of those things you don't know what's in there and what that flavor you taste in the back of your mouth is, but it's always mustard, whether you mix it with some mayo or some vinegar or some water.
But mustard's a key ingredient to dressings and lots of things.
It's a unsung hero.
Mustard in my book 100 percent um.
You know what i do in my potato salad, in addition to mustard, i add chopped pickles.
Oh yummy.
That sounds great.
A little acid in there.
Yeah.
And crunch.
Yeah, I like it.
I added scallions for crunch.
Yeah, yeah.
But you'll like it.
And we put a little honey in it as well.
I always love that balance of sweet and savory and salty and sweet.
I always try to incorporate that somehow, whether it's very minuscule or it's in your face.
But I always love sweet and sour.
That's a big thing for me.
All right, should we start cooking?
Yeah, let's do it.
The ribs are done, so Jimmy takes them off the grill.
Oh my goodness.
Wow, they're hot.
But there's a lot more to do before this dinner is ready.
It's time to pick up the pace.
We're making garlic butter, grilled bratwurst with grilled peppers and corn on the cob and habanero honey pork chops which I've been marinating in the fridge.
Now it's time to get those chops going.
I love watching chefs salt things, because I'm always like, oh so that's how they make it taste so good.
Yeah, we don't skimp.
Oh, the pork chops are porking.
Beautiful grill marks.
All right, we got sausages on the grill, corn, peppers.
It's all happening.
It's fun.
As the meal gets closer, there's an anticipation that builds.
That's right.
That's part of the fun of a dinner party.
Yeah.
Waiting and smelling and watching, and finally it comes.
It all comes together in that big moment.
Oh, look how good those look, huh?
A crowd of friends and neighbors is gathered on the deck, ready for the feast.
Pork chops, sausages, and veggies are all done, and Jimmy takes them inside to plate them.
That's where the ribs have been resting.
You want a taste?
Oh, yes.
Little taste of baby back rib.
Oh, man.
It's so good.
So soft and tender.
A little bit sticky sweet.
Sauce caramelized so nicely, but also just a little bit tangy.
Perfect.
It's going to be hard for me to decide which thing to eat.
You got to eat them all, man.
My life is really hard, Jimmy.
I think we're ready to go.
All right.
All right, who's ready to eat?
Woo!
Just about time.
Hope you're hungry.
This is really a glorious feast.
Oh my goodness.
This looks fabulous.
Three kinds of pork.
Oh my word.
And the food just keeps coming out.
Oh, my God.
We're starting to slice up the pork chops, and it is cooked perfectly.
And the potato salad, it's delicious.
The bratwurst are delicious.
So flavorful.
You grew up eating bratwurst?
Yes, I ate bratwurst once a week.
I loved it so much, and it's even better than it's ever been tonight.
It's so delicious.
Everything is so juicy.
Oh, man, Jimmy, the pork chops are so tender.
Brat's cooked perfectly.
The ribs, sticky sweet.
All great pork recipes.
I love this salad, though.
Tomato and peach.
Says summer, right?
Summer on a plate.
And it's like a perfect thing to go with the meat.
Agree, the sweetness, you know?
Yeah, a little freshness.
Exactly.
Cheers!
Cheers!
My thanks to Chef Jimmy Chinnis.
His restaurants are Swallow Kitchen and Cocktails and Lucello Pizza and Italian Fair, both in Greenlawn, New York.
If you want the recipes to any of the pork dishes he cooked, we'll link to them all in the show description.
This episode was produced by me and Max Miller.
The Sporkful production team includes me, Emma Morgenstern and Andres O'Hara.
Our engineer is Jared O'Connell and our executive producer is Camille Stanley.
The Sporkful is a production of Sirius XM Podcasts.
Until next time, I'm Dan Pashman.
And I'm Christine from Brooklyn, reminding you to eat more, eat better, and eat more better.
Brought to you by America's pig farmers.
