Bresaola

I have recently been cross training to work butcher on the weekends. This is not only good because it gives me a bit more experience and is something new to do, but also because it will give me a little bit of extra time after my shift to hopefully get the charcuterie project rolling faster. Now with that being said, the other day we received some beef tenderloins leftover from a chef's demo. So, I decided to try a bresaola. We haven't tried this yet, so I figured what better time than now. Since I have never done a bresaola, I am going based off of len poli's recipe for the most part. I am not smelling as much of the garlic or rosemary by using the dry, so depending on how it tastes, I may change this next time around. However, I will give in a update on those in the near future.

Here are a couple of images that Chef Windus shot the other night from a VIP tasting we did for a friend of his. There were more courses, but these included some of our house cured products. there was one more that had house lardons on it, but I didn't get a pic of that one.


House Smoked Pork Belly, Mizuna, House Lardo, Yuzu Pickled Watermelon, Compressed Watermelon, Watermelon Vinaigrette, Miso Powder, Candied Ginger, Micro Mustard Greens

House Lardo Wrapped Black Cherry, Black Cherry Noodle and Powder, Pure Butter Shortbread Cookie

A Failed Sopressata, but Good Mangalitsa Dog

I cut into this sopressata about a month ago, and was quite disappointed. It had such promise. Great ingredients, a nice mold on the outside, and I cut into it at about 38% weight loss. However, something had not gone right. The outside of the meat had dried and hardened into what I can only describe as what was like a "rind." The smell of the meat on the inside,( although not discolored but not dried either) was not right and borderline rotting. So needless to say it went into the trash rather quickly. There were only two but disappointing none the less. Better safe than sorry. I used artificial casings on these and have noticed that they dry up really quickly and don't shrink like natural casings, but there was also something that didn't go right on the inside.

On a brighter note, Chef Windus and I made some mangalitsa dogs for memorial day weekend. The ones in the following picture are the ones that I smoked at work (Chef has his own smoker at home). Then I grilled them up for a little BBQ we had for my wife's birthday. They were a hit. Better than the $2 12 pack dogs we bought...haha.