Recipes

Goetta (Cincinnati Pork and Oats)

Breakfast · German · Pates and Terrines · Pork

Goetta (Cincinnati Pork and Oats)
Prep 15 minutes
Cook 5 hours, plus 10 hours setting
Serves 25
Level Medium

Cincinnati’s breakfast loaf: braised pork shoulder ground with onion and celery, baked for two hours with pinhead oats in its own broth until it is a thick paste, set in loaf pans, then sliced and fried.

Untested: not yet made in this kitchen. It is here for the Pâtés and Terrines section and is adapted from the source named in the Notes.

Ingredients

  • 1 bone-in pork shoulder (3 pounds / 1.36 kg), fat cap trimmed to ½ inch
  • 1 large onion (10 ounces / 284 g), roughly chopped
  • 3 celery stalks, roughly chopped
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 10 cups (2.37 L) water
  • 2½ cups (400 g) pinhead or steel-cut oats
  • 1½ tablespoons Diamond Crystal kosher salt (half as much by volume if table salt)
  • 1 tablespoon black pepper
  • 1½ teaspoons dried ground sage
  • 1 teaspoon MSG (optional)
  • Oil or bacon fat, for frying

Directions

  1. Heat the oven to 350 °F. Cover the pork, onion, celery and bay leaves with the water in a Dutch oven, bring to a boil, cover, and braise in the oven until the pork falls off the bone, 2½–3 hours.
  2. Lift out the solids and discard the bay leaves. Make the liquid up to 8 cups.
  3. Shred the pork, discarding large pieces of fat and gristle. Grind it with the onion and celery.
  4. Return the meat to the liquid with the oats, salt, pepper, sage and MSG, and bring to a boil.
  5. Bake uncovered, stirring every 30 minutes for the first hour and every 15 minutes for the second, until it is a thick paste, about 2 hours.
  6. Pack into 3 greased or lined loaf pans (9 × 5 or 8½ × 4½ inches), about 4 cups each, pressing out air.
  7. Cool 1–2 hours, cover and chill at least 10 hours.
  8. Slice ½ inch thick and fry in 1 tablespoon fat over medium heat: 7–10 minutes undisturbed on the first side, 5–7 on the second. The slices are delicate.

Notes

Source Adapted from Jed Portman, “Goetta,” Serious Eats.

No liver Goetta is a grain-and-pork loaf, not a liver product; the name is Low German Götte, “groats.” Nineteenth-century immigrants from Oldenburg and Hanover brought it to Cincinnati.

The Pâtés and Terrines section’s American Cousins page (/pates-and-terrines/american-cousins/) covers the history and technique behind this dish.

The photo The photograph shows goetta at Price Hill Chili in Cincinnati.