Bresaola

This will be a brief post, but yesterday I cut into one of the bresaola, and was pleased outcome. I probably would bump up a couple of the spices and herbs when curing, but overall the flavor was good. It probably would have a better texture if I had used something other the tenderloin, but when I get free meat I don't complain. Here it is...

More Coppa

This time I actually was able to procure these coppa myself, since I was working butcher and received the massive mangalitsa shoulders. These things are serious. I just recently got some beef bung in, and it is a good thing that I did because I'm gonna need them. I have rubbed these down with salt, cane sugar, garlic, black pepper, cayenne, fennel, espelette, smoked paprika, and some cure 2. They just went in a couple of days ago, so I will post more about them later.

I have really high hopes for these bad boys. The smaller chunks of mangalitsa that I cured like coppa turned out really good, so my fingers are crossed.

This is a small plate i did a few weeks ago for a guest who came in and had the tasting menu 3 nights in a row. We gave him different courses each night, and I was stoked that I got to throw this one in.

From Left to Right: Pickled Okra, White Cuke, Cherry Bomb, Melted Lardo, Coppa, Bottom: Pepperoni, Lonzino

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

Some More Mangalitsa Jowl & The first peaches of the year

So this jowl was brined with some of the mangalitsa bacon, smoked and then sous vide. We are trying to come up with a new pork dish at work, and this is one of the concepts that I have been messing around with. The concept is there, but I am still trying to balance out the flavors.

We had a VIP come in for dinner tonight, so I sent them out a version of the dish. I didn't get a chance to snap a picture, but one of the other guys did, so I may post it down the road.

The Concept:
I sous vide the already smoke jowl @ 158' f for 24 hours in a mixture garlic honey, mustard seed, korean chili paste, peppercorns, etc.

Pickled Peaches with a mixture of cider vinegar, simple syrup, cinnamon, ginger, and red pepper flakes

the peaches were really soft, so i didn't really get the texture that I wanted. I may try compressing the with the liquid and dropping the bag into boiling water and shocking, and see if I can remove the skin without overcooking the flesh.

And I also made a Peach based BBQ sauce which turned out pretty good (a touch too sweet though).

So here is one we made up to taste.

ELEMENTS:
Sous Vide mangalitsa Jowl
Peach BBQ
Fried Anson Mills Grits
Pickled Peaches
Arugula
Parmesan
Burnt Onion
Freeze Dried Charred Corn (which was plated with NL2 to appears as if it was still smoking)

Mangalitsa Country Ham

Again, sorry for the lack of posts. I have been pretty busy, but will try to catch everyone up on what has been going on slowly but surely. So, the country ham has been cured, dried, smoked and will hang for a while (we're going for at least sixth months, but we'll see what happens).

The ham was cured with a mixture of cane sugar, salt, cure 2 and some spices and allowed to cure for just a little over 1 day per lb. I wasn't sure if it felt soft because there is at least 2 inches of fat surrounding the meat or if it hadn't cured enough so i let it go a little longer. I rinsed it, patted it dry and we allowed a pellicle to form before Chef Windus cold smoked it for about 2 days. I rubbed the exposed meat with a mixture of lard, semolina and black pepper and red pepper flakes (i read a couple of recipes who mixed the spice rub in with the lard).

I can't wait to taste it. It smells great and the meat had a dark rosy red color to it after smoking. It smelled up the walk-in for a couple of days when it first went in. Smelled like a barbecue every time someone opened the door.

Now we wait...

Here is the ham the first day into the cure

Hanging to form the pellicle before smoking

After smoking. You can kind of see how the skin has become a deeper brown color

The Chamber is Growing

Here is an updated shot of the chamber. I have since rearranged it into rows, in which I can slide the older meats forward and hang the newer behind without much difficulty. So as it continues to fill up it will look a bit more organized. I do have a couple things I want to tackle here in the next week or so (N'duja, Boudin, and Summer Sausage), but we have the Epcot Chefs Gala, a couple of off premise catering events, and a big buyout coming up, so it will be tough to squeeze it all in. But for now, here is the chamber. The Pepperoni and Sopressata should be done soon, so some tasting notes to come.

mangalitsa

Although we have been extremely busy with the new menu change, and the addition of a 5 course tasting menu and 3 course prix fixe menu, I have been able to keep up with curing (large things anyways). I must say before I start, that this is in my own personal opinion one of my, if not the most successful and tasty thing we have cured yet. MANGALITSA BACON! which really looks like lardo, but if rendered properly is soooo good. I cured it for 17 days, Chef Windus smoked it for about a day, and now we eat it. The best way to cook it is pressed between 2 silpats in the oven, but was able to do an amuse for my uncle the other night (with I had snapped a shot) which consisted of bacon wrapped wild striped bass, stewed dragons tongue (white) beans, burnt onion and truffle jus. I was really pleased with it.

I know these pictures aren't very good, but they give you an idea of the fat on these things....






We also have some mangalitsa lardo that has been hanging, and a bunch of chunks that recently went into the cure...



We're also messing around with flavor profiles....



Piment d'Espelette



Hot Smoked Paprika

Have some guanciale on the way as well.....STOKED!!

Mangalitsa

I apologize now for the lenght of this post, but without further ado....

The other day we went to Ocala to visit Torm Siverson of Pasture Prime Wagyu and the first ever Florida raised and killed Mangalitsa pig. It was awesome to actually get to see the slaughter process from start to finish seeing as its been about 14 years since I last saw a pig slaughtered and 8 or so since my calf experience. I snapped a lot of photos, however I will try to keep the blood to a minimum.


the pig weighed around 300 pounds before the slaughter
and about 225 after cleaning


here he is rolling around in the mud


here is Torm with him before they took him in to slaughter


the pig is bled and prepared for removing the hair


the water bath the pig is placed in


removal of the hair


the pig after removing the innards


me and my march mustache admiring the size of the jowls



Since this was the first pig, we only received sample parts which consisted of the head, a shoulder, the loin and a belly. I was able to get my hand on some lardo, the belly, some jowl and the ears. This is what I came up with.....

Bacon


The jowl and ears were sous vide for 24 hours and then pressed.


And then it is seared and crisped up, it was pretty good

there are some cracklings too.....

Lonzino

The other day I was lucky enough to receive some kurobuta pork loins from the banquet kitchen. I cured the loin with some cure 2, black pepper, salt, garlic, etc. I kept the flavors simple and straight forward (even though I was pleased with my Cocoa rubbed lonzino last time around) hoping not to hide too much of the natural pork flavor, especially since it's kurobuta. My only worries this time around are that a) I have never used synthetic casings (not very stoked about it) and b) they were too big for the loins after curing, so I had trouble getting a lot of the air out. I used my probing needle to poke holes and tied them as tight as I could, but don't know what is going to happen.

I am expecting these to take about 3 weeks, maybe a bit less since they aren't very big. After curing for about 10 days they were cased, hung to dry at 75' for about 16 hours and will cure in my chamber between 58 - 65' with an RH of about 75 - 80% (after the first couple of days. The humidity always gets jacked up when I first hang fresh batches in it). Here are some pictures of the loins before going into the chamber.


after curing




here you can see the one that most of the air didn't come out of

Prosciutto de Orlando

Tonight I decided that I could no longer wait to cut into my suckling Prosciutto. I have been waiting months, and would wait no more!!! The only problem with charcuterie is the wait, but as they say, "Patience is a virtue." Well, I had waited long enough. The prosciutto had probably been ready for a month or so, but since this was my first attempt at curing a ham I decided to let it go as long as I possibly could without giving in...(and I did....both!).

I cured the prosciutto, rubbing it down with just kosher salt for a month. I covered the exposed muscle with a mixture of lard, semolina and ground black peppercorn, and I then hung the little thing at room temperature for about 72 hours, and then in to my curing chamber it went where it has been at about 62' F with an RH of 75 - 80%, with a constant breeze from my trusty little cool-eaze fan. It went into the chamber some time around early September, so hung for a total of about 5 months. Here is a picture of the finished prosciutto before I cut into it.



The yield on this thing was pretty bad (obviously) however my main goal with this project was to a) cure a prosciutto succesfully and b) prove that my chamber works. I feel that I was successful at both, and am more than happy with how my prosciutto turned out. Here you can see my yield after removing the semolina paste, skin and one of the muscles.

Clockwise from top: Semolina paste, muscle, skin, rest of prosciutto.


Now onto the flavor. I was happy with the way the flavor turned out considering the drying conditions are not quite as good as a barn in Parma. The color is a nice deep red. The smell is like a prosciutto, but is a bit gamey smelling (but in a nice aged meat way). It's almost nutty and grassy. The flavor is salty, a bit of melon at the beginning, but the finish is really gamey and reminds me almost of a country ham. (I wish my grandfather still had the property he grew up on in Kentucky. I would love to get into the old 'summer house' and hang some country hams.) The only problem is since the muscle is so small, I have to cut it with the grain, otherwise the pieces would be way too small. So, it is a little tough when cut this way, but what can you do?





These 2 are pictures of the muscle before I removed the skin



This is the cleaned prosciutto before slicing



Sliced and ready for tasting.....

TASSO!!!

A few days ago I cured another batch of pork shoulder for the house smoked tasso. The shoulder is cut down into slabs and then quick cured, rinsed, patted dry, rubbed down with a mixture of spices and smoked for 12 hours. We then dice it up and render it a bit with some tomato as a base for the risotto on our "Dirty South Swordfish", which is barbecue rubbed and seared in a smokin hot cast iron. I'll try to snap a shot of the finished product and the whole dish and post it up soon before the spring menu change.

Here are some shots of the shoulder being cured....

lonzino and updates

I recently did a mole rubbed lonzino (got the idea from Grant at Blackhoof) with some of the suckling loins left over from our pigs. The spice rub was an adaptation of a rub we did at Beacon (when I was in New York) with a couple of spices (that I wanted to throw in), plus cure 2, salt, etc. I had never made a lonzino, but it was pretty easy. They dried up SUPER quick. They were at about 58% water loss after about 2 weeks or so, maybe. Needless to say they turned out good. There is just the hint of cocoa (I would have liked there to maybe be some heat), a nice saltiness, and a nice gamey pork finish. I was thinking it would make a good amuse with pickled corn and candied pumpkin seed powder. I'll have to try it out, maybe throw the idea at Chef. I also weighed one of my Lamb Salami today and it is right about 33% weight loss, but still feels a little soft (gonna check it in another 5 to 7 days) so I put it back into the chamber. Right now i'm hanging right around 60' with an RH of 80 - 84% (which i'm having trouble controlling due to the small size of my chamber), but all in all everything seems to be moving right along with no major problems (got a nice mold growing).

Guanciale

When Chef Todd English was in town, we had tons of sucklings in, so I took about 6 or so of the heads and decide to de-jowl them. Now, the jowl of a suckling is super small compared any normal 200 - 300 lb pig (obviously). Nevertheless, I decided to go ahead and try to cure them and make guanciale. I did the basic cure out of Rhulman's Charcuterie book to about 5 of them, a maple glazed cure to a couple and then BBQ rubbed a couple of them. They turned out really well actually. A bit salty when eaten on their own. Chef Windus decided to use them for our Chef's Pasta dish and so they were brunoised, rendered out and used in a carbonara. Overall I was pleased, but know there is still a lot that I need to learn (and I definitely am).

Here are pictures of cooked Jowl and the dried ones.





the curing chamber (its what I have to work with, and low budget)

Chef Windus and I made some Merguez this past weekend, and I have some left over lamb, and I had this thought of lamb salami with the leftover lamb. Definitely going to be doing that here in the next couple of days, so I'm pretty stoked. Hope that it turns out caus eI'm doing this one without a recipe, just some basic guidelines.