I own all manner of thermometers, smokers, grills of both the charcoal and gas variety, waxed aprons, and heat-proof gloves. But as a self-identified Grill Person, I know there is one thing that can take a BBQ from a good time on a beautiful afternoon to a meal that will remind you on winter’s darkest days that hope, happiness, and the ability to cook food outside will return: amazing meat.
I used to prep for a weekend of grilling by visiting my local butcher and having a little fun banter while fawning over briskets and racks of ribs. I still like to do this every now and then (for the banter), but these days my cookout shopping is dominated by assortments from Campo Grande.
My love affair with this meat delivery service started innocently enough. I’d loved the Iberico pork I’d eaten at restaurants, but had never tried cooking it at home. I received one of their mini Iberico sampler boxes, which came with a flank steak, a loin roast, and a richly marbled “secreto” steak cut from behind the shoulder. Like a lot of samples I get for work, I tucked it away somewhere it would keep and forgot about it. Then one day I came home from a vacation and needed a quick dinner. I threw some flaky salt and olive oil on the secreto steak, pan-seared it, and instantly fell in love. It was unlike any other pork product I’d ever tasted. I was hooked, and I wanted more.
What’s so special about Iberico?
First, let’s address the reason why Campo Grande’s meat is worth talking about. It specializes in Iberico pork, which only comes from a breed of pig found on Spain’s Iberian Peninsula. The Spanish government strictly regulates both the diet of the pigs and the conditions under which they’re raised and slaughtered. The very highest quality Iberico pork comes from pigs that eat exclusively acorns and live in oak groves with 1.25 pigs per hectare. After slaughter, the meat is aged for a minimum of three years. Campo Grande uses free-range pigs, so while they eat mostly acorns, they also consume grasses and the occasional grain during their luxurious life on the range.
Because Iberico production is so strictly controlled—and because it has a higher fat content than most pork—you should cook it to a lower internal temperature than you’re probably used to. This is especially true for a heritage breed like Black Iberian, which has a deeply nutty, complex flavor. Overcook it, and you’ll lose a lot of what makes this the kind of meat that chefs and food obsessives, well, obsess over.
Secret ingredient status
Because Iberico is so fatty and cooks so quickly, it’s become my go-to for last minute BBQ situations. I can smoke my favorite cut–the four-bone rib-eye rack–at 250℉ in around 90 minutes, but it disappears in fewer than five. All of the thinner steaks cook in 5–6 minutes, total, and are gone just as fast. One thing to know if you’re new to Iberico: Because the flavor is so distinctive and rich, these need little more than salt and fire to make them sing.
I found myself always needing to cook more meat than I thought I did because my guests would devour secreto steaks and pork belly faster than I could slice them (that also meant I started swatting people’s hands away from the slices I’d pushed to a corner of the cutting board for myself.
I’m not the only Bon Appétit editor who’s had this experience with Campo Grande pork. My colleague Noah Kaufman said: “I have family members who are a little phobic about any visible pockets of fat on a piece of meat because certain parents of theirs served particularly gristly stuff (names withheld to protect everyone involved). I got them to try a piece of secreto steak and it produced the most confused look as it melted away in their mouth like a soft piece of buttered bread.”
How to get Camp Grande
I love that I can shop the Campo Grande pork selection like an online butcher shop, building a box of my personal favorites. For me, that usually involves a 4-rib rack, a few secreto steaks, some of their ground Iberico-Wagyu blend for the most decadent burgers known to humankind, and a few packs of quail legs, which I love to toss in some Potluck Ssamjang and throw on the grill for a quick weeknight dinner. And if I have a special occasion coming up, one of their thick-cut Vaca Vieja steaks—huge, bone-in hunks of meat that look like something Wilma Flintstone would prepare—is definitely going in there.
If you don’t want to make choices, their preset boxes are great too. There are options for smoking and high-heat grilling in addition to ones that will just help you stock your freezer with a few months’ worth of luxury pork products.
But wait, there’s more? Yeah, there’s more. Campo Grande’s charcuterie is also top-notch. The offerings are tightly curated: There’s only coppa, chorizo, salchichón, and paleta, a cured ham cut from the shoulder that’s like if prosciutto was wearing a really mysterious perfume. But really, what else do you need? Oh, perhaps you need 18 pounds of world-class pork. Fortunately for you, you can in fact get an entire Iberico shoulder ham. That should be enough to keep even the most serious of Grill People busy.
