Charcuterie Tales

10th Mar 2008

charcuterietales01

Time to play catchup.  Blake has been on the forefront of this curing business for awhile now and I just couldn’t stand back while he was slicing off hunks of his own fresh bacon and duck prosciutto .  I picked up a duck and a pork belly and got to work.

It might seem a little redundant to document two projects that Blake has already covered, but in all fairness, these are d...

The Duck Prosciutto Emerges

A results of a simple dry-cured meat project revealed

28th Nov 2007

duckprosciutto01

About ten days after I hung a salt-cured duck breast in the vestibule of my garden apartment, wrapped in cheesecloth and suspended by kitchen string in a little tent of wooden dowel rods, I retrieved it, unwrapped it, and laid it on a cutting board in my kitchen.  It was my first attempt at curing, my Duck Prosciutto .

The flesh had taken on a dark red, almost black color on the outside...

Beginner’s Charcuterie

1st Nov 2007

beginnerscharcuterie01

There are two kinds of cookbooks: some I buy and use, and others I buy and admire. I plan for the former, but end up doing the latter.  I have cookbooks about offal , bread-making , and curing meat , but I’ve yet to order beef bones to roast . I have a copy of the River Cottage cookbook , which tells you how to deliver a lamb, dig for scallops, grow carrots, make bacon, and...