Another cured meat post. Cant help myself really, it just feels a bit too good being able to make your own cured meats. Its a bit like lion taming or home birthing (haha, obscure). Its also ridiculously cheap and you can choose happy meat. This is my latest curing atempt;duck proscuttio
From everything i have read, curing a whole muscle like this is pretty fail proof. The meat cut required for a proscuito style cure has been minimally damaged, only a few cut edges, unlike salami where the meat is minced and is therefore more likely to be open to spoilage from bacterias you dont want. The salt does all the work. And the air. There are no fermentation and humidiy issues to worry about. Its just straight up uber salted meat drying.
I'd kept aside a duck breast from my last ducky adventure just for this purpose, if Id had a pig i would have started with that!
So i buried my duck breast in a kilo of non-iodised salt (kosher salt apparently! i never knew what the big fuss was with kosher salt, i mean its not cheese and its not ham and its definitely not both, so whats the bother? Kosher salt is a brand i have since discovered). Apparently the iodine in salt changes the cure flavour a little poorly. So folowing Mr Charcuteries' instructions, i headed into the five minute world of preparing a meat for proscuitto cure. Dead easy. Buried it for 24 hours in the salt an dpopped it in the fridge. After the 24 hours were up, i rinsed it, patted dry and wrapped it in cheesecloth and hung it in the pantry which stays a pretty stable temperature of between 11-14 C. Mr Charcuterie reports that the breast should be ready in a week from cure, but having squeezed and poked and sniffed(definitely smells like proscuitto!) its not quite ready me thinks its still too soft, so i will leave it another week but the colour has certainly changed from a lightish pink to a deeper more translucent maroon.
Hoping it will be ready for the Gnomes visit next weekend when we undertake some joint wine making adventures.And, for all you foodies out there, this food blog search is a gem.
6 comments:
Woohoo... looks great! I MUST make my own salami soon. And duck prosciutto.
There are free-range, organic (biodynamic) pigs to be had. Didn't ask how much, but it can be arranged. Half for you, half for us. How about it?
Or free-range, biodynamic beef. 90-100 kg per side. $8.90 per kilo. Might be a bit big for a freezer, though.
Your link is fantastic - thank you. Just found what I was looking for. Teehee...
oh my. an offer from heaven. My response is YESSS!!!!! but i know th ebloke will say something practical, like were will we store it all,( have had the second freezer discussion!). lets convince him on saturday shall we? hehe
Oh you are inspiring - I am almost tempted to buy some duck and try out your recipes....almost....I'm getting there x
There are a few brands of kosher salt, the key is the large grained texture and lack of additives.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosher_salt
I've got that book of Ruhlman's but haven't made anything from it yet. As I can get FR BD (expensive!) pork, I should.
zoe ahhh, thank you, you woman of 1000 food books! and yes!, you should, dead easy.she says.
katy- be tempted. be very tempted! will let y'all know how it goes.
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