Well, what do I have to say for myself? At least no one is reading tis so I am not disappointing anyone... right?
I am going to try and post here at least twice a week. Until I get some photos going, I won't worry about recipes or anything else, just thoughts on food and what I have been cooking or eating lately.
So to start with, I received Chef Brian Polcyn and Michael Ruhlman's book Charcuterie for Christmas and have made a few things...
- A couple of days after Christmas I made a Rack of lamb at my parents for an adult dinner while the kids and cousins watched a movie downstairs. I Frenched the rack, dug around for some of the meat in the scraps and made the Merguez recipe... very good as an appetizer.
- Breakfast Sausage - Yummy, I have to say, I think it says a lot about my wife (and my obsession with food) that she can wake up on a Sunday morning and see me in kitchen, dicing seasoning and grinding meat to make breakfast sausage fresh and all she says is "Good Morning", Not "What are you doing" not "You know you can buy sausage at the store."
- Italian Sausage - I sort of combined his hot and sweet variations and made a slightly spicy sweet version that I really like. I also added aged balsamic vinegar from Fustini's instead of the red wine vinegar.
- Tasso - I have made tasso in the past but not for several years.. where does the time go. I used a combination of my recipe and Chef Polcyn's technique. My original recipe didn't contain the #1 Cure, but I didn't really notice a difference. He had a different spice blend but I am partial to mine. Good stuff either way.
- Duck Prosciutto - I have been wanting to make this for a long time, not sure why I didn't, saw some on a blog years ago but never made the attempt. I did the most basic duck prosciutto in the book, salt overnight, rinse, dust with white pepper and hang for a week. It probably could have hung for another week but it was good, easy and successful... It prepared me for bigger and better things.
- Pepperoni - I have wanted to make this since culinary school... why? Not sure. I actually made some in the sausage portion of Chef Angus' class but because of the long drying time we never ate it, it just sort of disappeared... hmmmm, currently it is hanging in my crawl space which has a perfect temperature, maybe a little dry but I have been checking on it and I think it will be ready for tasting in another week or two. Will take pictures and share my notes.
- Coppa - this is from the book, again I modified it slightly, adding a little paprika to the sweet recipe for color. We just stuffed this and have it hanging in the crawl space near the pepperoni.
Yummmmmmmmmm
