My Meat is coming home to roost- finished basturma and T&T Coppa

so here it is.. what started as a 6.85lb hunk of beautifultails and trotters coppa is now a 5lb hunk of beautiful man meat!!   This is spicy cured goodness, and I'm looking forward to cutting into it.

I've also attached a pic of a basturma that I started a little after the Coppa.  Nothing special here, just a nice 3lb hunk of eye of round, cured and ready to eat.

Since I have a lardo ready to go as well, I think I'm going to be hosting a "tasting party" at my house in the near future, and will be inviting local wine and charcuterie fans to come over and eat my meat ( and pickles ).

Stay tuned... this is going to be good.

Tails & Trotters Lardo - Into the Curing Chamber ( and the pup)

Back from Sunriver feeling very refreshed and ready to jump back into work and making the world a little better one piece of meat at a time.

The lardo served it's time in the cure ( not unlike the time I served in the Corps, Marine Corps that is :))  and is ready for a good soak to bring down the salt level.

After the soak it's looking good.

This is my second T&T lardo ( the first one being almost ready to eat ), and I decided that I wanted to really spice it up, so I took a quick stroll out in my garden ( and Pence's yard ) to find some suitable herbs.  As you can see, I found some beautiful thyme ( with flowers.. love it ), fennel fronds, and rosemary.

I gave this all a very good chop and mixed them up and crusted the lardo with them, really pushing the herbs into the lardo.  As you can see, this is really going to impart an herbal flavor to the dish.

So, off into the curing chamber for 3-6 months.. I'm thinking paper thin slices of lardo on warm Grand Central baguette this Thanksgiving.... mmm.. cured backfat!!

ps.. that damn dog has tripled her size in 3 weeks!!!

Tails and Trotters Bacon- Finished

This will be a quick post, as I'm up to my ears in TPS reports, Time sheets, monthly status reports, and assorted whatnots of corporate management life.

As you saw in my previous post, I took a 6.85lb Tails and Trotters belly, covered it in my "base cure" ( see previous posts for recipe ), and put it in the Man Fridge for 3 days, flipping at the halfway point.

I took it out of the cure Thurs morning, gave it a really good rinse, and left it uncovered in the Man Fridge for about 8 hours.   I then put it in the trusty Little Chief and smoked it with apple wood chips for another 8 hours, and you can see the results here.

  This is going to be freaking awesome... we're heading to Sunriver for a week, so after I torture myself with my morning run, I'll nurture myself with sweet bacon and coffee.

PS.. .our chocolate lab, Rainy, has now doubled her size in the two weeks she's been with us.  Ella won't be able to carry her around like her baby for much longer, although i'm sure she'll figure out a way to get the ballerina dress on her for quite some time.

Crazy!!!

Tails and Trotters Bacon and Lardo - From Farmers Mkt to the Cure

So I found myself on a Sunny Sunday morning with nothing planned and needing to get my little nugget out of the house for a bit while my wife's group of cackling hen friends come over for sunday brunch.   I've been a bit neglectful in my Hazlenut finished pork buying the last few weeks so decided to go visit my new friend Morgan Brownlow, proprietor of Tails and Trotters at the Irvington Farmers Market to rectify that.

I purchased a few Flat Iron and Coulotte steaks ( which are perfectly sized for 2-4 people and grill up perfectly ), and then I asked for the good stuff.   He didn't have a whole belly on him when I asked, but he grinned and said "will this do?".   "This" being a 6 pound behemoth of Pork Fat and belly meat.  Yowza!!!  That was one happy pig.   He also knows how much I love Lardo, so snuck a 3lb hunt of backfat in the bag.. Thanks Morgan!!!

On the menu for today:   Bacon and Lardo.  

Bacon is pretty easy.. see my previous recipes for cure.   I'm now almost exclusively using my "base cure" for all of my whole muscle curing needs, adapted as desired with different spices.

Coat the belly down with cure and rub it in really good.. Put it in a ceramic container, cover with wrap and check on it in 2 days.  ( Note.. I put this in Sunday night, checked on it Tuesday night, flipped it over and drained off the liquid that had accumulated.  I'll take it out Wed night or thurs morning to rinse and refridgerate, then smoke thurs night so we have some good bacon to take on vacation )

Lardo goes pretty much the same way with a slight difference.  I'll let this cure untouched until we return from vacation on July 9th.. then I'll give it a really good soaking ( 1-2 hours ), the coat it heavily in a very fine dice of rosemary, thyme and crushed red pepper.   Then I'll hang it in the curing chamber for 2-3 months.

Stay tuned.

PS.. Tails and Trotters delivers High Quality Hazlenut Finished Pork all over the USA ( luckily I have the man in my own home town ).  Check out their website and give them a call.   Morgan knows the farmers who raise the pigs ( and the pigs themselves ) all personally and watches every detail from feeding to slaughter to the whole pig being put on his butchers table to divide into small pork-loving packages.

Tell him you're a friend of the PCP and he may even give you the "family and friends" discount.  Trust me folks, this is ONE area you don't want to skimp on.   With every piece of charcuterie I make I'm learning that it all starts with Quality Meat... and there's nobody's meat I'd rather have in my mouth than Morgan's.

Making Sausage with Pence & another pic of our new puppy

I bought a sausage maker from Northern Tool ( approx $100 plus shipping )

I'm going to use it to make fresh sausage and Salume, but haven't gotten around to making anything yet.

My buddy John Pants ( pence ) called and asked to borrow it for a dinner he was doing at caprialandjohnskitchen .   I brought the tool over, and we proceeded to make some fennel/spice sausage (well, he made it and I drank beer and took pictures )

Not much to say: The Metal parts were frozen for a few hours, John ground the meat, seasoned it, mixed it, then extruded it into beautiful sausage.

peaking of beautiful sausage.. check out our new puppy....

Smoked Salmon- From Cure to the Smoker

Now our beautiful Coho fillets have sat in the cure in my manfridge for 3 days, then rinsed off very well and given a really light dusting of black pepper and red pepper flakes.

Now it's off to the smoker.   I've mentioned it several times in my previous posts, but here's a pic.

This is the Little Chief smoker from Smokehouse Products in Hood River, OR.   This is a pretty common home smoker and ubiquitous here in the Pacific Northwest.  It retails for about $70 new, although you can find them often on Craigslist or in the paper for $20-$30 in good shape.

This one belongs to my good friend JDub.  Now that Mr. Fancy has a Traeger ( Teachers... overpaid and underworked!!), he's sort of "loaned" the little chief to Pence and myself.   I'd love a Traeger, but this thing works and meets our need, so I'm going to suck it up.

Now onto the Coho.  Check this beauty out getting placed in the smoker.

I smoked this baby using applewood chips for about 6 hours...

Absolutely beautiful!!!

I usually cut each fillet into three pieces for individual serving sizes.. but this time I kept them whole, which allows for a great presentation on  a long platter with a sourcream/horseradish/dill sauce, surrounded by sliced baguette ( wish I had a pic ).

Everytime I bring this to a party, or serve it at my house, I get rave reviews, and this is super quick to put together at last minute

Give this one a try... and Enjoy!!!

Smoked Salmon- Coho in the Cure & Puppies

Ahhh... Summer in Oregon.. Hot sunny days, cool nights, great BBQ's.   

NOT!!!

Well, at least not the sunny days.   We've had plenty of cool nights ( and wet days )... but dire predictions aside, summer IS coming and the weather will turn nice soon.   Nothing goes better at a BBQ than a whole side of smoked salmon with Grand Central baguettes and a homemade horseradish Dill spread.

In case you're not from the Pacific NorthWest, I have to let you know that we have Salmon coming out the wazoo... you can't swing a dead cat without running into a native fisherman or store selling fresh salmon out of the columbia river ( we don't eat the salmon out of the Willamette, but that's another story ).  Unfortunately, I'm so swamped with work due to my new slavedriver of a boss ( Hi Harry!! ) that I can't seem to find time to swing a dead cat or get fresh Salmon.

So here we are:  two fillets of Coho, Fresh from the waters of QFC Supermarket ( previously frozen so we don't get any nasty parasites ).  Each one is about 1 1/2lbs and beautifuly colored.

Cure is simple ( Ella wanted to get in the blog, so there you go baby )

2cups kosher salt

1cup dark brown sugar

1/2 cup white sugar

1/2 tsp pink salt( sodium nitrate )

1tsp cayenne pepper

and for something totally new

2tbsp roughly ground wild fennel seed.

Into the manfridge for 3 days, then for a good rinse and sitting in the fridge for 24 hours to develop a good pellicle.    I'll be smoking them using either cherry or hickory on Saturday or Sunday, if Pence can get off his butt and get the smoker back to me.

Oh Yeah.. We're getting a puppy too.  Say hello to the newest member of our family, Rainy.

She's a 7 week old Chocolate lab pup ( named by Ella of course ).

She's being weaned at the Breeders, but Amy's picking her up tomorrow and after a checkup at the Vet, we'll be bringing her home.

This is going to be a huge lifestyle change for us, as we haven't had a puppy in years.   We've even had to change our summer vacation from a tour of southern oregon and california, to a week in Sunriver, so we can bond with our new girl.   We're really excited and looking forward to having some fun with her.