I know what you did this summer!

Hi All.. this has been a fantastic summer.. one of the best ever!

I've been doing lots of projects, just not many in the cured meats dept.

I have some great new things to show you(smoked salmon, sturgeon, pickles, jams, etc ), as well as an abysmal failure ( my Tuscan style salami )

I'll also show you how my two awesome legs of Proscuitto are turning out.. they're a beautiful mahogany color and I'm looking forward to cutting one open for the holidays in January.. the second is going to become a "2 year " Proscuitto.. or maybe longer.   

Right now it's beautiful in Portland, the sun is shining ( HOT ) and we're starting the flood of tomatoes.  I'll be setting up a pickle party in the next week or two to make about 10 cases of spicy garlic dills.. and in between I'll be doing a few cases of random stuff  ( like gooseneck and pattypan squash baby pickles, okra, dilly beans, green and red pickled tomatoes, and lots of other cool stuff ).

As the weather turns and we start thinking about the grape harvest in wine country 30 minutes away, I'll enjoy helping my friends bring in the grapes and get everything into the fermenters... after that, It's time to start making salami .. and i"ll probably start 2 or 3 more coppa and lonzino to get ready for the holidays.

Hope you're making lots of cool new stuff now.

Here's my first major failure... turns out the salami stuffer I first bought, tended to emulsify the meat paste... you can see the results below.

Here's a beautiful grouping of pancetta finished curing, rubbed in herbs and ready to hang up.   Then the end result three months later.





Absolutely beautiful!

What might be the best jam I've ever made... Peach Ginger on the right... Heaven in a Jar.. along with some Blackberry goodness.

Beautiful carrots Ella and I planted, grew, and harvested

Same carrots turned into canned Cardamom Carrots

Along the way, Amy and I managed to find time to visit Willakenzie to drink some wine.

Ate quite a few dinners on the deck of my pickles, along with great baguettes, fresh goat cheese and tomatoes from the garden...

Went backpacking with JDub to Serene Lake... what a beautiful place and water actually warm enough to swim in....

Made a ton of smoked sockeye... this stuff is going to make lots of folks real happy in 2012....

Of course, had to make time to hit OBF 2011...

Nice hanging out with JDub and drinking a few(dozen) cold ones....

Nocino 2011 is cooking away... should be done by November.

Made some fantastic tails and trotters bacon.

I also tried a new(old) recipe for beet pickled deviled eggs... awesome!...

I even found time to make a new coppa..

and the highlight of the summer... playing with my little girl on the beach in Nags Head, NC...

and watching her catch ghost crabs at night on the beach...

Ran the Epic Relay with my wife and some great friends..

I also tried a new recipe for Kimchee.. and found out that it's so good I MUST be 1/2 Korean.

Now I"m sitting in a hotel In Salt Lake City.... traveling again for work... but in the coming weeks I'll be planting my fall/winter/spring garden, pickling shit tons of cukes, making more jam, and some exotic pickles, as well as making 5-10 pounds of salami before the grape harvest comes and I get to help my friends make their wine.    After that, it's time to make the next batch of proscuittos... then cut one of the ones from last year open around the Christmas holidays. to enjoy the fruits of my labors with friends.

I hope you're all doing well... hopefully my next post won't take quite as long or be as lengthy.

Pancetta and Kimchee

Howdy everyone:

I just realized it's been almost 3 months since my last post, and while I havent' been blogging, rest assured I most definitely have been making charcuterie.

Today's entry is Pancetta... or "Italian Bacon"  if you're my mom.   It's bacon like, and comes from the belly, but at least according to the way I make regular bacon, worlds apart.

I started with 2 8lb bellies from Tails and Trotters and half of it ended up being not from the rib end where the good meat is, and was a bit too fatty for bacon, so when you're handed fatty pork belly, you make pancetta.

Here you go.. nice looking bellies, will cure nicely.   I used the standard cure ( mix of kosher salt, brown sugar, and Cure #2, along with some cayenne, smoked hot paprika, and red pepper flakes.

Into the cure they go, see you in three weeks.

Three weeks later, I give them a good rinse for about 15 minutes to leach out some salt... then coat them in a mixture of fresh rosemary, oregano, thyme ( from my garden ) along with cayenne, smoked spanish paprika, and a bit of kosher salt

Now it's into the curing chamber for 3 or 4 months while I figure out what to use this stuff for.. most likely I'll slice it super thin and put on pizzas I'll be making in my new wood fired pizza oven.. or maybe lots of pasta carbonara this winter :)

on the non meat front, I want you all to check out my first ever attempt at Kimchee ( Korean pickled cabbage ).

It turned out awesome.. fermented for 4 days with spices.. nice ginger/lemongrass flavor with strong but not overpowering spiciness.   My Korean Godfather would be proud.

Our garden is overflowing with Spinach, Arugula, lettuces, sugar and snap peas, and lots of herbs that I'm drying.  Tomatoes are very slowly catching up to where they should be.. a couple of weeks of solid heat that's supposed to be on the way should help.

I have a coppa that's about ready to come out of the cure tomorrow.. I may blog about that.. just trying to decide whether to case it, or try it without this time.

All the best you guys.

Lamb/Pork Salami Tasting Notes

Here are the finished Lamb/Pork Salami.    The reddish one on the left is the Berbere spiced and the greenish on the right is the Zattar.

They are both well made, dried to about 40% weight loss ( we like our salami drier ), and with a very light mold on them.

The Berbere has a VERY strong spice taste.. and I like that, but it's obscured the taste of the meat, so next time I'll use less.

The Zattar tastes wonderful.. exotic lamby-porky goodness, with a hint of the desert and mint tea.

These went very well with a Paulaner HefeWeizen on a rare sunny April day in Portland this past weekend.

Before:

After:

I vacuum sealed them and threw them in my keg fridge to keep them from drying anymore.. hoping that they'll be fine ( I do that with my lonzino and coppa and it hasn't hurt them yet.

The salt % was under 2% on this batch.. but from now on, I"m kicking it up to 3.5% to be on the safe side.  I just finished another pork soppressata last week and we'll see how that turns out.

Lamb/Pork Salami- Zattar and Berbere

Here's the recipe




3lb's Anderson farms ground Lamb, and 2lbs  Carlton Farms ground pork ( Great fat/meat ratio)

40 grams Kosher Salt

5 grams cure #2

17 grams Bacto Ferm F-RM-52

1/3 cup water

25 grams dextrose

4 oz red wine ( mosen cleto.. grenache/tempranillo blend )

25 grams cayenne pepper

10 grams bactoferm Mold 600 culture (to be sprayed on salami for development of white mold"fiore")

I then used 80 grams each of green Zattar Spice for half the mixture and 80 grams of Berbere spice for the other half ( stuffed separately)

Here it all is.. ready to be mixed together. I decided that grinding pork at home is a pain in the butt and if my buddy Morgan at T&T is willing to do it for me, why not?

Next up, take the bactoferm and water (with a pinch of dextrose ) mix together and wake them up and put aside. ( do the same with the Mold culture)

I froze the mixing bowl the night before and then threw the meat in the freezer for an hour to keep everything cold and keep emulsification to a minimum ( same with the metal parts of the sausage stuffer ).





Mix everything together by hand, saving the bactoferm culture for the last part ( I put the meat back in the freezer for about 30 mins while doing my prep, then pulled it out and added the bactoferm and mixed well.

 
 



After tying off, it's into my ghetto fermenter ( aka- tupperware container in my oven, with the door cracked, light on, and covered by a towel ) at around 85 degrees F for 3 days. After that, it's off to the "curing chamber" Aka Mancave, now Home Office to hang for about 4-6 weeks or until they've lost about 30% of their weight

 If you look closely you can see the greenish tint to the Zattar Salami, and the reddish tint of the Berbere Salami.

Stay tuned.. they've been hanging for about a week now and look ( and smell) great.. I think I"ll be able to cut one of the "chubs" next weekned to test.

Large Spicy Salami Toscano

A few months ago I placed an order at butcherpacker for assorted supplies and large (90 and 100mm ) casings for my coppas and lonzinos.   I saw a "cool" casing that was a bit larger than what I had used before (probably around 3" across), that came pre-wrapped with netting.    I hadn't figured out what I was going to do with them, but finally decided to turn them into big spicy salami.

Here's the recipe

2,354 grams T&T ground Pork ( Great fat/meat ratio)
40 grams Kosher Salt
5 grams cure #2
17 grams Bacto Ferm F-RM-52
1/3 cup water
25 grams dextrose
4 oz red wine ( mosen cleto.. grenache/tempranillo blend )
25 grams cayenne pepper
15 grams crushed red pepper flake
15 grams ground hot new mexico chili pepper
5 grams ground black pepper
10 grams bactoferm Mold 600 culture (to be sprayed on salami for development of white mold"fiore")

Here it all is.. ready to be mixed together.   I decided that grinding pork at home is a pain in the butt and if my buddy Morgan at T&T is willing to do it for me, why not?

Next up, take the bactoferm and water (with a pinch of dextrose ) mix together and wake them up and put aside. ( do the same with the Mold culture)

I froze the mixing bowl the night before and then threw the meat in the freezer for an hour to keep everything cold and keep emulsification to a minimum ( same with the metal parts of the sausage stuffer ).

Mix everything together by hand, saving the bactoferm culture for the last part ( I put the meat back in the freezer for about 30 mins while doing my prep, then pulled it out and added the bactoferm and mixed well.

Here's the end result.. all ready for stuffing.  Look at that beautiful red color and nice chunks of pork fat.

For the first casing, I assembled the sausage stuffer and then used it.    I really had a problem with this, as the constant smushing of the meat into the feeder assembly really emulsified the meat more than desired.   Also, quite a bit remained in the feeder mechanism, and stuck behind the grinding plate ( not sure if that can be removed for stuffing, as the manual isn't very detailed ).

End result.. I got it stuffed, then pricked it full of holes, squeezed it down tight and tied it off.  

For the Second casing, I decided to stuff it by hand to see if I could eliminate the emulsification problem.

It was a little messy, but easier by hand than using the stuffer.   I'll probably do it by hand for all the larger casings moving forward.

After tying off, it's into my ghetto fermenter ( aka- tupperware container in my oven, with the door cracked, light on, and covered by a towel ) at around 85 degrees F for 3 days.   After that, it's off to the "curing chamber" Aka Mancave, now Home Office to hang for about 4-6 weeks or until they've lost about 30% of their weight.

If you look closely, you can see the differences between the hand stuffed ( and not emulsified ) casing on the left, and the sausage stuffer stuffed casing ( emulsified) on the right.   I'm hoping both turn out well, but if not, I know that my buddy Paul will eat anything and happily take the one on the right.

In personal news, I left Kaiser Permanente about 3 weeks ago and am now managing a PMO (project mgt office) for a lab automation company. This is a great move for me and my family, as it gets me back in the for-profit world compensation level and true pay for performance.  I'll be travelling a bit more now, but when I'm not on the road, I'll be working from home and that will give me a bit more freedom to indulge my charcuterie and (soon) wine making hobbies.

Charcutapalooza

I've recently joined a group of fellow bloggers who have embraced a concept created by Mrs. Wheelbarrow (Cathy) and The Yummy Mummy (Kim), it has grown from an idea to get fellow bloggers to try their hand at homemade charcuterie to a group of bloggers nearing 300 total (the list of them is here) all wanting to try it out and share their experiences on their various blogs. The daily banter can be found on Twitter using the hash tag #charcutepalooza


so here we go.

I need to catch up, so I'll be doing duck proscuitto next week, but first my buddy Morgan from Tails and Trotters has a delivery for me of 10lbs of hazlenut finished belly ( for bacon and pancetta ) 5lbs of ground pork meat and belly ( for Salume ).  I also have a 10lb pork loin in the fridge that needs to be cured tonight for my next Lonzino Da Diavalo.  The first two turned out great and since it's very lean, it's something we can eat often without guilt.

Thanks to Darrin of Low on the Hog for the blatant plagairism regarding the Charcutapalooza.

On  a Personal Note, I'm leaving Kaiser Permanente after almost 4 years and have joined a new company that provides lab automation and services to the Healthcare industry, so I get to try a new position leading a high profile PMO while still doing good things in Healthcare.   I'll be travelling a bit, but for the most part I'm hoping to be able to spend more time with my family and my horde of cured meats.

Salame Toscano - Tasting Notes

So here we are:  A watershed moment for the Portland Charcuterie Project.

Our first Salame.   It's a thing of beauty, and tastes great.

As you may recall from our last post, these puppies fermented for 2 days in my ghetto fermenter ( aka "tupperware container in my oven"), then hung in the Mancave for 18 days.

Check them out:  I didn't actually weigh them, but it feels like they've lost about 30-35% of their weight and are very solid.   Beautiful fiore mold on the outside ( I cultured my own mold from a salami purchased at Trader Joe's ).   The first ones are what I'm calling "chubbers" as they were the results of splits in the middles which was caused when I was squeezing the air out of them.  I just shortened them and tied them off ).

Look at the beautiful color, great binding, and gorgeous fat distribution ( no smearing here ).

I couldn't be happier with my first attempt, and am looking forward to cutting down one of the full size salume this weekend.

Chalk this  up as a win for the PCP.   Next up, Fennel Salume.

I also want to thank my friends for a great bday weekend up at Mt. Hood.

Who said 41 was old?

ps.. no bacon chocolate cake this year.. but Stephen and I were able to celebrate our bdays ( me 41, him 40 ) in style with a monster chocolate donut from Sesame Donuts.  We ate that thing for three days!.

Stay tuned for our next posts.. I'm just about ready to bottle my Nocino.



Salame Toscano - First Attempt - From pile 'o pork to cured goodness

Welcome back meat fans..

Well, here it is.. PCP's first attempt at salume.. for my first time, I'm making Salame Toscano ( hopefully not Salume Salmonella ), with the recipe based on one I got from the god of cured meat Scott at The Sausage Debauchery.  I've modified it a bit, but here's the recipe:

4,155Grams Pork and Fat ( about 70-30 meat to fat ratio)

72 grams Salt

9 grams cure #2

29 grams bacto ferm F-RM-52

1/3 cup water

44 grams dextrose

15 grams black pepper ( ground)

7 grams crushed fresh garlic

6 oz dry red wine ( dago red )

10 grams cayenne powder

15 grams red pepper flakes

After mixing together ( using frozen bowls ), i got my grinder cleaned up, put the meat in the freezer to solidify a bit, as well as the stuffer, and started putting my mis en place together.

Here are the first links I've ever stuffed.. obviously rookie style, as they're all varying lengths.

All of the stuffing and tying took me about 2 hours, which seems like a lot, but I was a bit overzealous in sqeezing the meat and split many links.. good thing I bought 30 feet of hog middles.

After cleaning up, the fresh salume went into my ghetto fermenter.  A simple tupperware container in my oven, leaving the light on, and covered with a towel ( this kept the temp at about 89-91 degrees the entire time.

Here's a shot of my oven (aka "ghetto fermenter" ) My wife is a trooper to keep it like that for 2 days wasn't she?

Here is the fresh salume hanging next to my proscuitti and lonzino.. 3 or 4 weeks and i'll be very happy ( or dead ).

Here they are after hanging for a week.. luckily we escaped to mexico

 or I would have been out there molesting and squeezing them everyday.

Oh.. here's the finished Tails and Trotters Lardo I started this summer.  It's absolutely delicious and I'll be giving this one to my new friend Rick from the food cart Lardo which is in Portland at SE43rd and Belmont.  Check it out!!

Stay tuned for tasting notes in about 2-3 weeks.  I'm hoping to have my friends Morgan Brownlow of Tails and Trotters, Vincent Fritzche of Vincent Wine Company, and my good friend and neighbors JDUB ( no website.. he's an overpaid and underworked teacher ) and John Pence Caprial and John's Kitchen come over to try the Salume, Lonzino, and do a blind tasting of an Oregon Pinot Noir I've committed to writing tasting notes for.

Have a great day.. headed to Mt. Hood for a long weekend snowboarding and relaxing with good friends and no kids :)