Fine Liver Pâté

Out of the freezer for a photo op.

Well, this is the only picture I have at the moment, so it's not much of a seller, but I can assure you that this pâté will make you the belle of the ball. Maybe for ten minutes. To the one person who is eating it all. But that's okay. I'll take any recognition I can get. But seriously, can you puree something? Well then you can make some excellent pâté. The real question is: can you puree pork liver? Because, you know, some people think they can't. But you can!

I'll be honest, the blubbery mass that is the pig's liver is a bit slippery and a tad smelly, in a fresh liver kind of way. When I received my half of a pig, I had asked for all the organs and I received a huge liver. I think it was more than one liver. So, with two pounds of liver on my hands I made the easiest thing I could find, which was this recipe from The New York Times Cookbook, the original from 1961, edited by Craig Claiborne.

Because no one can eat that much pâté, I wondered and searched for a tip on freezing. And I found it from none other than Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall (the tip is the very last sentence of the article!). The trick to freezing pâté is to freeze it before you cook it! Et voila. I did this, and that's why I have one pan waiting for the holidays. The other was unveiled at a friend's birthday party, surrounded by slices of pickled pears, and I can attest, as well as one other party attendee, that it was superb.

Fine Liver Pâté
Adapted from The NYT Cook Book

2 pounds of pork liver, cubed
3 eggs
1/3 cup of pear brandy (or cognac)
1 cup of heavy cream
2/3 cup fresh pork fat
1 onion, chopped
1/2 cup flour
5 teaspoons of salt
1 teaspoon of ground ginger
2 teaspoons of fresh ground pepper (I like it coarsely ground, with some sprinkled on top for appearances)

Use some rendered fat to grease two bread pans well. I used ceramic loaf pans. Purée the liver, eggs, brandy and cream. Add the flour, onion and fat a little at a time. It will be quite a lot of pinkish liquid meat. Pour into a bowl and add the seasonings, mix well. Pour into your pan and cover with plastic wrap, so that the wrap clings to the purée. Then cover well with aluminum. Freeze on a level shelf.

When you want to cook it, pull it a good day before you want to cook it. Put it in the fridge and let it thaw slowly. Once fully defrosted pull off the aluminum so you can remove the plastic wrap. Put the aluminum foil back on. Bake in a pan of water in a 325 degree oven for about two hours. There's no toothpick method here, you just have to know what your looking for. I pulled mine when the edges were pulling from the sides and getting dark. Serve on a platter with pickled pears.

This post is for the ninth installment of Charcutepalooza!

Love my CorningWare!

Bacon, Smoked Ham, Ham Hocks, Liver Paté even, but no Terrine!

Box one of two.

Many people ask me, "How do you do it all?" Meaning, how do I find the time to do all the things I do, and write about them, and photograph them. Well, I often reply, I don't! Not all of it. There's so much I don't do. Like cleaning. And calling my friends more. And reading. I'd also like to point out that most of the things I do are very easy, once you get them into your routine. Bonus, if you really like making yogurt or bread or jam. Some people don't.

A few weeks ago, I started getting really exhausted. My back started bothering me a lot. Gardening and lifting my thirty-pound toddler had been taking a toll. I took out a few yoga videos from the library because I knew what I needed was some good stretching. As I read the back covers of the DVDs, I thought disdainfully: I don't have time for yoga!

And then I had this second thought: Seriously? I don't have time to not do yoga! It's funny, because I'm talking like some high-powered executive. Well, let's be real, shall we? I happen to be a homesteady-obsessed stay-at-home mommy of one toddler. Not exactly Soulemama, right? Rather rationally, I thought to myself: you need to cut something out. And immediately it came to me, clear as a bell: the blog.

I love the blog. I don't want to kill the blog, I screamed! Let me tell you what the blog does for me. It wraps up a few of my favorite things--writing, photography, food-- in one fell swoop. It also deeply satisfies a few other cravings I have. That of connecting with people who care about similar things, and the documentarian in me, so I can go back and see what I made and how I made it. But the quick and dirty fact about the blog, and it sounds so horrible, but this thing is not a paying gig, you know? And there are some things I need to be focusing on, that take precedence over something that is solely a self-centered pleasure.

Once I stopped obsessing about the blog, I suddenly felt a wave of relief. And then panic. And then a realization that I had been blogging for almost two years with no break! Maybe I'm just tired, I thought. Maybe I need to recharge. I'm not sure I can do this was a thought. Well, I'm not going to end my blog. I actually can't! Not because I think anybody will miss it. But, because I will miss it. Not because it's important to anyone. But because it's important to me. I'm trying to figure out how to make sure it doesn't take over my life, and that means keeping my nose out of Twitter and Facebook, much as I like to socialize. And maybe not posting every little victual I cook up.

And that brings me to this month's Charcutepalooza challenge. One of the things I also realized about having this blog, is that I've become a better cook for it. Joining Tigress' Can Jam and then Charcutepalooza really have pushed me to strive a little; something that's really not in my nature. I'm more of a perservere-er. (Very similar to the word preserver!) But this month's terrine challenge I really had no gumption for, even though I really wanted to make something, perhaps this tomato terrine from Bon Appétit. I was a little too overwhelmed, having ordered a half hog from Meiller's Slaughterhouse in Pine Plains.

After curing and smoking ten pounds of bacon, 3.5 pound of hocks, and a twenty-two pound ham, and making two huge loaves of liver paté, I was sort of exhausted (though it looks like I may be in luck for next month). Maybe that's what tipped me over the edge. That and the heat we were having at the time. Now it's been gorgeous out, the humidity and haze has lifted, and the air is clear and crisp making each leaf on a tree stand out. Every blade of grass looks distinct. The sky is blue with puffy clouds, the trees rustle in the breeze, and it gets cool at night which makes sleeping all that much more sweet. It's a small taste of autumn right around the corner. I'm looking forward to writing about it. Just a little.

Bratwurst

This month's Charcutepalooza challenge, to me at least, was stuffing my sausages. The real one was emulsification -- the focus of which is blending, which results in a smooth-textured sausage. But for me, I was still concerned about how to actually stuff. Not the how-to, but the actual doing. Last month, I was lucky enough to cross paths with Peter and Winnie, and we got to use Peter's KitchenAid. This month, I went out and finally purchased a meat grinder after deliberating whether or not to finally break down and buy a KitchenAid. It was cheaper to buy the grinder, and with two cars on their way out, I can't be too expansive. I bought this, a Waring Pro MG100, which was about $100:

The culprit.

I can't say I recommend it. The short answer: it's going back to the store. Ends up, the worm, for whatever reason, likes to fall out of the motor housing (did I say that right?), and it just plain doesn't work. On the Amazon page there are a bunch of comments discussing this particular flaw, which I neglected to read before purchasing the machine. I was able to grind the meat, and fill two sausages before it stopped working entirely. Thankfully, my neighbor heard about my troubles and brought over her KitchenAid and meat grinding attachment. Aren't neighbors grand? I might not ever buy anything, but just borrow her KitchenAid every few months. 

Beautiful brats. Only two, but still beautiful.

It did grind the meat though, and much faster and nicer than the hand grinder, which couldn't really chew up the sinewy pork too well. I ate my breakfast sausage the other day, again for breakfast and also dinner, it was so good. I did notice that although it was very tasty, the texture left something to be desired, and it was due to the hand grinding. And that machine did work lovely for the two large sausages I was able to fill.

I served my dinner of bratwurst with some of the first local-ish corn I saw in the market. It was from New Jersey, and I just couldn't resist. It delivered. The corn was sweet and creamy, the perfect addition to the meal. And the bread was homemade sourdough that I toasted in the pan after cooking the brats. But where was the sauerkraut? 

The beginning of lettuce kraut.

Well, a week before I had harvested a huge amount of kale and lettuce from the garden, and I thought: why not kale kraut? Of course, it's not an original thought. I found this post from The Simple Green Frugal Co-Op, which I used as inspiration. And it's such a simple recipe that it would be silly to re-write here. Go and visit! I made a quart of lettuce and a quart of kale. The finished product is a mite salty, but goes well as a condiment. It doesn't have the tartness of cabbage kraut. The kale kraut was lovely alongside the brats. I also made a romaine lettuce kraut, which makes a great sandwich topping. What's wonderful about these ferments, is that they take only a few days. So you will have your sauerkraut just in time for your bratwurst.

Sweet, Sweet Italian Sausage

Welcome to the half-year mark of Charcutepalooza! This month's challenge was stuffing sausages. And I'll tell you, that is a beautiful thing. I sort of feel like this might be my worst Charcutepalooza post, as my mind is a million other places right now, but by far it was the most fun. Indeed, I had so much fun, and enjoyed my sausages so much, that I neglected to take any really wonderful photographs, except for that one above. I had the great good fortune to work alongside Winnie from Healthy Green Kitchen, and Peter from Cookblog. Both Winnie and Peter are people I not only admire greatly for their intelligence, expertise, sense of aesthetic and wicked humor, but they are also just really great people. I was really surprised at how comfortable it was to get together with a few folks, stand around a KitchenAid with a grinder attachment and fill hog casings with ground meat. 

Can I tell you also about how easy it was to fill the sausages? But really, it's one of those things that you need to do, to feel, to understand. We brought our already ground sausage, chilled and ready to go. Peter, who is the pro in this case, kept the hopper filled, and Winnie and I experienced the filling of the casings. I was a little worried about twisting them off, but ends up you don't have to. Fill your sausages and then twist them after, when they are inert and laying on the counter. Like animal balloons. It's actually a lot of fun. 

Here's my sausage story: when I was a kid I would help my father make sausages. It was not uncommon in my house to find a small plastic container of hog casings packed in salt in the door of the fridge. We had a little electric grinder, and watching the meat push through the cutting plate was better than any plastic Play Doh toy. I've been telling my Dad about my adventures in sausages, and this makes him very pleased. (Happy Father's Day, Dad!)

My learning curve: left, a squiggly beginning, right is the stout end.

My sausage was a very basic Italian, pretty much from the book, Charcuterie. I omitted (forgot?) the black pepper, and used a lemon thyme pickle brine instead of the red wine vinegar. Because our plans to meet came together rapidly, I didn't really have time to think about it. I had 2.5 pounds of pork, cubed and ready to go, in the freezer. I had the foresight to purchase five pounds of pork fat back and freeze it in one pound packs. The day we made plans, I grabbed the pork and put it in the fridge, along with the fat. That night, I ground them, still crunchy with frost, with my old hand grinder that I swore I wouldn't use again. It wasn't as bad as the first time (maybe because I had a hungry family to feed the first time, and this was at night, alone). One of the great things I learned about this challenge was that I do indeed want a dedicated sausage grinder. Maybe I even need one. Did you know that you can also use your grinder as a food mill? As long as you are scrupulously clean, applesauce and tomato sauce can also be processed in a meat grinder. I have not done this personally, but do intend to try.

On that night, returning from the sausage stuffing event, it was hot as blazes out and what better meal to have then the sausages I traded with Peter and Winnie. I think I got the better end of the deal. Winnie made merguez, which reminded me of a place I used to eat at in Brooklyn called Oznot's Dish, where I used to get the outrageously good merguez with eggs. Winnie's merguez took me right back. And Peter's Spanish Chorizo, whoah. Perfectly subtle and outrageous at the same time. I had the sausages with a small, barely dressed salad, and it made for such a exquisite meal. Even though it was thrown together. Even though I was sitting at the kitchen table with bare feet, and a toddler across from me was eating plain noodles with his hands.

My Italians.

As with anything you make or grow yourself, these sausages were transcendent. Really and truly they were something I chewed and sort of felt completely in the moment about. Or was I transported? I never know, in those moments, what it exactly is, but you get the idea. Is it better because it's better, or because you did it yourself? Both, I guess. I really wasn't expecting much from my sausages--sweet Italian, whatever, right? And I did love them. But upon further thought and research I wondered about my sausages. They didn't have the fat distinct from the meat, as they should have. Did the meat "break" I wonder? Apparently that would have rendered the sausage unpalatable. But I thought they were delicious, amazing, but maybe a bit too rich. This is also a sign of a not quite fully realized sausage. No matter. This is a mystery I intend to solve. I will continue this delicious research diligently. Thanks again, Charcutepalooza!

Do you know how hard it is to take a picture, when there is a hungry person behind you?

Breakfast and Dinner Sausage

Beer: necessity for making sausage?

Is it really already the fifth month of Charcutepalooza?? This fine month we worked on our grinding. Again, I give thanks for Charcutepalooza, because my two old hand-cranked grinders were gathering dust in the basement, waiting for me to use them. I promised them I would, but they keep on getting shuttled into a darker, farther corner of a cabinet or box. After the challenge was issued, I dutifully went downstairs and cleaned them off. Would they work? Did I have all the pieces? Was I crazy for collecting these things? Well, yes and no.

The bad grinder.

I started off with a beer, standard for sausage making, no? And the younger of the two grinders. I'm not sure what I might be missing, or if this thing is just a stinker, but boy was this grinder the worst. A pencil sharpener would have worked better. I promptly dispatched it to the sink and feeling downhearted, drank my beer. My husband cheered me (knowing if he didn't, dinner might just be peanut butter and jelly and not sausages), and I rallied with the next, older, ancient-looking grinder, also a Universal. The meat waited in the freezer while I gathered courage to try again.

The good grinder. More beer.

 This one worked. Quite well, in fact, in comparison to the hell that was the other one. I am SO glad I didn't do five pounds, though. And once I was done, it smelled incredibly good. I think I saw my husband wipe the sweat from his brow. He knows it's bad news if something pisses me off in the kitchen. And he didn't want PB&J's for dinner.

They are cool looking, though, aren't they? 

Breakfast (or Dinner?) Sausage Recipe:

2.5 pounds of pork butt shoulder
1.5 tablespoons of kosher salt
2 tablespoons of chopped fresh parsley
1 teaspoon of fresh lemon thyme
1 tablespoon of chopped garlic
a pinch of red pepper flakes
1/2 teaspoon of Meyer lemon zest
ground pepper to taste

I followed the breakfast sausage directionsin Charcuterie for making this.

Glorious pork.

The Meyer lemon zest was an after thought. When I opened the freezer to pull the meat out, there was my little container of zest in there. Perfect, I thought! It really added a fresh tanginess to the sausage, that went along perfectly with the fresh lemon thyme from my garden.

Who doesn't love a log of sausage?

I stuck this little log in the fridge alongside it's friend, the Canadian bacon. Now I have two more awesome breakfasts to look forward to. I know it's not exciting, but we had the sausage patties for dinner, with some fresh eggs and local asparagus. It was so delicious, I think I may rename my sausage dinner sausage. I really wanted to make the merguez, but I got caught up in some life stuff and so had to stick with the single challenge this month. Those grinders slowed me down a little, too. My next purchase is an electric grinder, because I need to make a LOT more sausage. Good thing it was my birthday the other day, so I can squeeze one last present out of it. 

Dinner!

Smoked Trout and Canadian Bacon

This is the fourth month of Charcutepalooza, and I'm still in the game. You know what I have to say about Charcutepalooza? I have now made all of these things that I always had plans for but hadn't yet gotten around to it. There is so much that I jump right into, but for some reason my plans for charcuterie had been more daunting than most of my endeavors. And let's hear it for Charcuterie, the guiding tome. You know what? I finally got my copy in the mail! Finally!

As a new comer to smoking, it took me a while before I compartmentalized smoking foods into those two simple categories: cold smoking and hot smoking. Cold smoking foods does not cook them, but imparts the smokey flavor, and as such it is important to use a curing salt because cold smoking invites bad bacteria as the temperatures are less than 100 degrees F. Hot smoking, however, utilizes higher temperatures (above 150 degrees F.) and thus cooks the food, while imparting the smoke flavor, and in my mind, it is not quite so important to use curing salt. (The book recommends using curing salt, or pink salt, in all cases unless you are hot smoking at 300 degrees F.)

Cold smoker.

Last summer, my father in law brought me a smoker. This was a Little Chief, with an electric element, and I later found out, a cold smoker. You know how I found out? I smoked some trout in it, and it took six hours, and it was still not done so I had to bake it off in the oven. I will definitely return to this smoker to make cold smoked salmon.

Hot smoker.

The trout that I cold smoked wasn't very smoky. I didn't brine it. I did it all wrong, but at least I cooked it fully. (This may be why jumping into meat curing isn't the brightest idea. You've got to have some bit of knowledge, and that's why Charcuterie, the book, is so great.) Undaunted, I pestered a friend to loan me his smoker that was stuffed in a storage space. He graciously delivered it to my house, seemingly shamed by it's neglect. (He will be repaid in Canadian bacon, I assure you.)

You wouldn't mind being paid in bacon, would you?

So, the second time around I got four whole trout, brined them a few hours and let them sit over night. It was a chilly night, about 33 degrees, and I locked the porch doors hoping rodents wouldn't get in. I then hot smoked it for almost two hours at 180 degrees with alder wood.  I used this Alton Brown recipe for the trout. There is one in Charcuterie (look under the recipe for trout rillettes--yum), but I didn't want to use pink salt, and didn't feel it was necessary for safety (because it was being hot smoked, and fully cooked at safe temperatures) or taste (this was a guess, but I was right). A little bit of knowledge and suddenly I'm a know it all, huh?

Can I talk about the pellicle for a second? Do you know how much I enjoy that word? I especially love how essential it is to smoking anything. The pellicle is formed when the once brined or cured meat is patted dry and allowed to completely dry, and get a little sticky, before smoking. I think the word sounds like oracle. And when my trout had sat over night in a nice chilled evening with a light breeze it formed a wonderful pellicle and I knew, as if it were an oracle of future goodness, that my trout would rule. Or maybe I was just smoking something. Regardless, I like that word. But dang, that trout did rule.

Oh, goodness.

Because I wasn't satisfied with just smoking fish, I opted to make Canadian bacon, too. I was able to order a local pork loin via my supermarket, which was convenient. Because I still had a big bag of that Morton's Tender Quick, I figured why not use it? So I followed a recipe on their site. It was very simple and not quite a brine, a rub that made it's own brine as it sat, much like making bacon. I let it cure for three days and then smoked it with hickory wood for almost three hours at 225 degrees, when the internal temperature reached 150 degrees. When I pulled it out, I felt immensely proud of myself! And, whoa nelly, it was freaking good! Four pounds of Canadian bacon is a boat load of the stuff, and let's be honest, I probably won't make this again any time soon. Although, wouldn't it make a super cool Christmas present along with some good maple syrup? With the rest of the bacon, I sliced it and put it in the freezer to pull out on special occasions.

Pickled green beans and pickled green tomatoes. 

I had some friends over for dinner last night, and I decided to make a few small plates with my smoked goods. It was all very simple and very tasty. Here's what happened.

Smoked Trout Dip

1/4 cup of cream cheese
1/4 cup plain yogurt
one to two whole smoked trout, depending on your tastes, skin removed
a tablespoon of capers

Let the cream cheese sit out and soften. Then add the yogurt and whip them together (I used a fork, then an immersion blender) until smooth. Add the flaked trout and capers and fold them in. Serve with crackers.

Canadian Bacon and Leek Frittata

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Heat a large cast iron pan with a small bit of olive oil to coat it. Saute a half of a cleaned large leek, sliced thinly, until wilted and golden. Remove leeks to a plate.

Can we squeeze a veggie in here?

Add a spot more oil, leaving pan on medium heat. Layer slices of Canadian bacon to cover the bottom of the pan. Add 6 eggs, beaten with a splash of milk or cream, and about 4 ounces of grated cheese (I used a nice sharp cheddar) and cook until the sides seem set but the center is still very wobbly. Put the pan in the oven for about ten or fifteen minutes, until the center seems set. Remove and let cool a bit.

Before.

Using a knife, cut around the edges and using a spatula check to see if the bottom is sticking. If all looks good, put a plate on the pan and invert, so that you have an upside-down canadian bacon pie when you're done. Serve slightly cooled with a bit of chives, in thin pie wedges. No forks needed.

After. Slightly 1950's Better Home and Gardens?

Corned Beef Brisket

Can it possibly be the third month of Charcutepalooza?? Are you following along with Mrs. Wheelbarrow and The Yummy Mummy? And Punk Domestics and Food52? It seems like everywhere I go on the internet, I've got delicious, meat-curing company. This month's challenge--brining meats--can be found here in detail. Because I already had a grass-fed, local, five pound brisket in the freezer, I was prepared. There were plans for this thing to be corned beef as soon as I got it.

It wasn't me who had the plans, by the way. My husband, who is half Irish, had made the bid. Me? If I see an St. Patrick's Day parade I run the other way. Needless to say, I don't have any memories of brisket, in any way. I'm sure my mother made it once or twice. And I've made it once or twice to appease my husband. A huge sandwich from Katz's deli in NYC or some smoked meat from Montreal's Schwartz's once every couple of years and I'd be fine. The times I've made it before I didn't realize I was making corned beef, because honestly, it didn't taste like corned beef. It tasted good, like a nice chunk of beef, a little bland, surrounded by watery cabbage. Not too exciting.

Up until now in this challenge, I've been pink salt-less. This month I decided I wanted that pinky pink salt corned beef. But then I did a weird thing. I was rushed for some reason (I'm an impatient sort) and felt like I didn't have time for ordering pink salt on line. So, I went to Agway, a local feed/garden store, forever lured by their surprisingly well-stocked preserving section, and purchased some Morton's Tender Quick, a curing salt blend. I based my Tender Quick calculations on a post on a Garden Web forum. (Btw, Garden Web forums are filled with gems. There are some obsessive people posting willy nilly on those things!) The Kitchn also had a post on corned beef with Tender Quick, but I felt that two cups of Tender Quick was too much.

What happened? I heated up my cure and spices in water in a big pot. Once it was dissolved I put it on the porch to cool, and it really smelled amazing, of peppercorns and juniper goodness. Later on that evening, after trimming the meat well, I put it into a ziploc with the brine, and it sat in the fridge for about a week. It didn't turn very pink, which I was happy with. As I cooked it off (in the largest braising pan I have) the house smelled incredible. It was done in three hours.

Once cooked, it was brightly pink, and delicious, though I will say that it was a tad dry for my liking. Steve, however, was elated. And we ate it for days. This huge slab of meat kept giving. The next day I made massive grilled corned beef sandwiches, reuben-esque, you might say. Wheat bread, muenster cheese, thick slices of corned beef, and some crazy good garlic and dill relish. Then on Sunday morning we had a huge plate of the best ever corned beef hash. Now, that was worthwhile. How can people eat that dog food they sell in cans??

The thing I hate the most about corned beef dinners is the cabbage. Something about cabbage that's been boiled for hours makes me a bit ill. I did a quick boiled salad instead, lightly pickled. Here it is:

Two parsnips, peeled and thinly sliced in rounds
One small head of cabbage, cut into bite-sized wedges
A few carrots, peeled and sliced
Scallions, chopped

In boiling water, cook the root vegetables one at a time for two to three minutes, pulling them out with a slotted spoon for the next batch. Put them in a bowl as you go, and toss the scallions in at the end to wilt. Dissolve a tablespoon of sugar in a quarter of a cup of apple cider vinegar and pour over the warm veg. Let them sit and pickle a little.

Corny beef.

Bacon, Guanciale

Quite a nice Valentine's Day!

Where to begin? I guess it could start with a tweet on Twitter (#charcutepalooza). I tweeted that the bacon I had just made was the best I'd ever had. Mrs. Wheelbarrow congratulated me on converting. And I said that I had been converted last year, but now I was proselytizing. Indeed, I am here to sing the praises of curing your own bacon, and guanciale. They are totally worth all the sitting around I did, living my own life, while they did their own magical thing with salt and time, transforming into amazing cured products that turn everything they touch into tasty, tasty gold. That little number above? That was our appetizer on Monday night. Nice, right?


What made my bacon the best I'd ever had was the high-quality pork belly I had purchased at Fleisher's Meats. It's all about the ingredients. Everything will taste better and be better for you when it's all about the ingredients. Look at this pork belly.

Suggestively fleshy.

And the after shot. I usually use this Saveur recipe, but this time omitted the seasoning in favor of just a bit of cracked pepper. I'm so glad I did. It was so simple and the flavor of the meat itself just shined.

Isn't that how bacon should look?

Other than just having slices fried up for dinner or breakfast or whenever I could get a free minute, I enjoyed this special snack I made for Valentine's day:


 I cooked some oysters right on the stovetop cast-iron grill alongside a few slices of bacon. You know they are done when they open their shells. (They go a lot quicker on an outdoor grill, but mine's asleep until spring.) Then, you can grab them with a oven-mitted hand and rip off the flat shell. Put them on a plate, top them with some bacon and a touch of chopped preserved lemons, chopped chives and cheers! Drink some champagne.

Oysters and bacon.

Part Two: Guanciale

Hog jowl.

What is it about these winter-lit shots of raw meat that are so seamy? Is it the butcher paper? The crinkly plastic wrap? I don't know but these are like pin-ups. So. Ahem.

I loved the Babbo recipe, and of course referred to Wrightfood, too. (Confession: I haven't bought my copy of Charcuterie yet. So far, I'm the only person sitting at the Barnes & Noble Thomas the Train play table watching my toddler play trains while reading a book on meat curing. That may change soon, though. Either I will get the book, or more people will be reading up on guanciale while playing trains. My favorite train? Salty!)

Threading meat was a novelty.

You know, I had no idea how much I'd love guanciale. And I had no idea how different it was from bacon. I sort of thought: yeah, well, it's just more bacon, right? And that would be: wrong. After it's initial salt soak in the fridge, I hung it in the basement with a little cloth covering it. (I got an okay from guru Bob del Grosso on this; my basement is very dusty.) After two and a half weeks it felt and looked right, but it didn't lose the 30% weight. So, being that today was post day I decided to chance it and pull it.

Look at that pristine white fat! I sauteed some up to make this bastardized version of an amatriciana sauce. A few slices fried up turns glassy first, and they a little browned on the edges. A taste reveals such sweetness (again, that Fleisher's meat) and nuttiness! This is what we ate tonight for dinner. Not bad for a stay at home mom whose two and a half year old is on a nap strike.

Chopped guanciale sauteed until golden. Add one medium onion, diced, saute until soft. Add one jar of sauce (homemade, canned, from my garden) slowly, until all is incorporated. Add a few chopped celery leaves (no parsley in the house, celery leaves from summer, frozen). Toss in pasta of your choice (organic wheat rigatoni), serve with pecorino shavings. Now, wolf it down and chase your toddler who is choking the cat and try to get him to sleep!

Duck (Prosciutto) Soup

What I love about things like cured meats and homemade stock, is that when you have those things on hand, simple things become elevated. It doesn't take much to make a five minute soup that is stellar. And I'm not the only one. I had just taken these photos and was eating my soup and reading when I came upon this post by Peter at cookblog who eloquently discusses the merits of having wonderful things like cured meats on hand.

All I did was heat up some chicken stock, throw in some frozen spinach (organic--once the bag is open you can grab a handful and toss it in, not like those big blocks you often find), a handful of frozen scallions (from the garden) and once in a bowl I topped it with a few slices of duck prosciutto. I didn't need to add any salt or flavoring because the duck took care of that. It just takes a few minutes for something amazing once you have a few items on hand.

Duck Prosciutto

This post is my first installment of the meaty, year-long extravaganza called Charcutepalooza, co-created by the amazingly dedicated and hard-working Cathy Barrow of Mrs. Wheelbarrow and Kim Foster of the Yummy Mummy. There will be monthly postings by over a hundred bloggers on curing, smoking and salting all following recipes from the wonderful book Charcuterie by Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn. Check out the Facebook page for Charcutepalooza and see what others are up to!

I already told myself that this would be the year that I would focus on preserving meat and making cheese, and it looks like I'm certainly not alone in this endeavor. About 90% of the meat our family eats is locally-sourced. And we've worked really hard at cutting down the meat consumption, both in portion size and how many times a week we eat it. Where I live in the Hudson Valley of New York, I find it's been really simple to source great local meat. Fleisher's in Kingston, the Hudson Valley Food Network's Split and Share discussion group, and wonderful farmers and their markets every week have made it easy for me to have amazing quality local meat. (Sadly, due to where I live I can't join the Charcuterie CSA at The Piggery, based in Ithaca, with CSA drop-offs in NYC). 

However, the real reason I want to make charcuterie is because I love it. Like, a lot. I have many fond memories of standing on a chair with an apron wrapped around me twice, the gunmetal-colored meat grinder attached to the sink, a bowl beneath, watching, mesmerized by the meat being forced out the holes. (Best play-doh ever!) My parents always ground their own meat, and made sausages. We always had casings in the fridge. I love this stuff. It's in my blood. Last year I made bacon and gravlax, both amazingly delicious. And let's not forget the cost in purchasing charcuterie. So there you have it. The motivation is there. But sometimes even then I need a little kick in the pants.

Bresaola and duck prosciutto in Peter's kitchen.

Rewind. Back in June, I had the good fortune to attend a meat curing class taught by Peter at cookblog. Aside from learning something every time I read his blog, Peter also writes a great column in the local magazine Chronogram. I was totally excited to be in his gorgeous new kitchen (that he built) among a group of like-minded folks learning about curing whole-muscle cuts. My brain sort of short-circuited when I tasted some of the lovely things he served us, like the duck prosciutto and amazing bread (made by a friend of his, if I recall correctly) or the miso-cured bacon we gorged on at the end of the class. There was a good deal of eye rolling going on, and not in the sarcastic way. In the oh-my-god-did-I-just-eat-some-salty-heaven?? kind of way.

That bacon was dangerously good.

Like the good-natured dork I am, I asked the group (was I on a salt high?) "Who's going right home and making this stuff??" And everyone looked at me like wha? So, yeah, I didn't go right home and make the five things we learned, but I have an excuse. Did you happen to notice what kind of summer it was in my area? Probably not, but it was HOT. So hot that having hanging meat around was probably not the best thing in the world. Add that to the canning frenzy I was in, and I was a goner from the get go. But now it's winter, and I'm ready to make and eat some salty meat. So.

Salt - a player.

A few notes about making the prosciutto itself. First off, do you know Cooking Light has a recipe for this online? I was sort of surprised! It's basically just salt and duck, and some pepper or what have you. I chose black pepper instead of white pepper (um, didn't have white pepper...). I sort of timed this wrong by making it on New Year's Eve while busily preparing for the evening. No cheesecloth? No problem, I used an old linen. (I never buy cheesecloth; instead I use old, worn (clean) linens instead.) I hung them in the basement. Our basement in that corner is consistently 60 degrees. I'm not positive about the humidity, but I'm guessing it's about 60%. I based that on using our de-humidifier to roughly guess. So, I think it's okay barring the two little windows which let in a bit of light. I might need to shade them off if I do any more hanging of meat. (My fig tree is in that area, and it was supposed to be dormant but I just found a shoot coming off of it!)

One of the things I learned was the importance of weighing the meat before you hang it, as you can judge when your meat is done by how much weight it lost during the hanging. You want to look for a 30% weight loss. I didn't weigh the breasts until they were already hanging for two days. And I'll be honest, I'm not too scientific. I pulled them a week and two days after they were hung, and I thought they felt good (not too hard, not too soft). Once unwrapped the outside seemed like it was getting a little "jerked." Once sliced the inside was garnet, and I felt maybe a hair too pink. I think it was done though, and chose not to rehang them and risk drying them too much. I'm still wondering if I pulled them too soon; I've been known to do that. A day in the fridge has toughened them and made them darker. It tastes outrageously good, duck-y, prosciutto-y, and rich. Ta da!

A little bit of jerkification on the fat-less side.

I don't have a recipe with which to showcase this, though I'm sure I'll just invite some friends over and eat it up, tout suite. Maybe with a champagne cocktail with elderberry syrup in it. Or in a risotto. That sounds just perfect.