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 Coppa

This is my first attempt at a coppa. Our guy at culinary classics is working on getting me an actual coppa, but for now I just used cuts form the shoulder of the mangalitsa. They cured for 15 days in a mixture of salt, cure #2, cane sugar, garlic, black pepper, juniper berries, and red pepper flakes. Then they got rubbed down with a mixture of smoked paprika, cayenne, red pepper flakes, some espelette, etc.

This is my first attempt so I hope they turn out good. The most fun came when trying to case them!!!

 

I also have recently done some pepperoni and sopressata with mangalitsa. It's great having all of these mangalitsa rolling in because I am able to use all of the scraps on my projects and the quality of meat is superior. The pepperoni is a mixture of mangalitsa scraps and wagyu scraps. Should be tasty.

Here is another mangalitsa belly that I thought was worth posting. We have a handful of these going. These things are beasts.

I'll post on my recent trip to Charleston, SC and stage at McCrady's restaurant soon....

Lamb and more Lamb

I was looking through the freezer at work and came across some lamb shoulders that were in there from the past menu change. So, I went home and looked through "The Art of Making Fermented Sausages," and came across the Merguez recipe (we added some zaatar spice as well). Talked it over with Chef Windus, and decided that it would be an easy enough recipe for us to execute. (The reason that I like Marianski's book is that all of the sausages are fermented and then smoked/dried or dried.) However, when I got over to the commissary the grinder is a hand cranked grinder/stuffer combo, and let me just say that I worked out twice that day. Anyways here are some pictures of the Merguez at day 1 and a shot I snapped at day 5. My chamber is super humid, but I just have to kind of monitor it everyday, and often times crack the door to let some moisture out. Overall I was pleased with the flavor (a nice subtle heat).





Now that the Merguez was working, I still had about 3 lbs of Lamb left over, so I thought why not try to make a Salami. I didn't use a recipe for this one, just some basic guidelines for a normal salami (cure weights, bactoferm, etc.) and then added what spices I thought would be good (fennel, black pepper, crushed red pepper, red wine...nothing too crazy). This one was definitely a challenge for me though. Everything was going smoothly since I used an electric grinder this time, however since it was such a small recipe, I wanted to just hurry up and get it done before service (which hurry up didn't happen...and by hurry up I mean pipe it into casings instead of walking over to the other hotel and use the stuffer). Nevertheless it turned out well. The salamis are incubating right now, and I will hang them in a couple of days.