Becoming a smoker

The first Charcutepalooza challenge involving smoking meat was this month. (You might notice that I am posting on the 20th instead of the 15th, this month I did smoke the neat on the 15th, but we didn't try it till breakfast on the 16th.)

I made Canadian bacon, brined and hot-smoked pork loin. I remembered it being bit like ham only smoked, and that's about right.



The smoking technique still needs practice. I have grand plans to apply technology and my electric smoker to the task eventually - I have a temperature controller, a data acquisition system to eventually replace the temperature controller with brains that do smoother control, and an electric smoker ready to be controlled -- ready, except that I set up the temperature controller to run a rice cooker, and the smoker requires an outlet with a ground, and I haven't been motivated to modify the temperature controller again. But this is supposed to be a food blog, not a geek blog.

So we made smoke the low-tech way. Ok, not that low tech. I lit the fire with matches, crumpled newspaper, and a chimney, not by rubbing two sticks together. But I did have two sticks, and those went into the project too - the source of smoke for our canadian bacon was the remains from pruning one of our backyard plum trees.

I improvised my smoke and heat source by putting some lit coals in with small bits of the sticks, cut up with the pruning shears, and some shavings from the wood to make sawdust, too. I don't think it worked as well as intended - the heat was slow to get to where I wanted it (indirect heat around 200F) and then the coals burned out too fast. But in the meanwhile, we got some smoke flavor into the meat. Not long enough to fully hot-smoke it to a fully cooked temperature, so then it went into a low oven for a while. The house smelled of tasty smoke by the time that was done, so I knew the smoking part of the adventure had not been for naught.


All those words (and all that work) for a few slices of meat, more brought to a birthday party, and more in the fridge for later. But my, those slices of meat were good.

a few days early for St. Patrick's Day

This month's charcutepalooza challenge was brining - corned beef tongue, or corned beef brisket, or if one was feeling less ambitious, brined pork chops.

I've brined tongue tongue several times already - our meat CSA often has it in the bargain bin at pickup, and having home-cured corned beef tongue for under a dollar a pound is hard to pass up.

So in the spirit of having charcutepalooza be about trying something new, I brined a small brisket from the meat CSA instead. Really pushing boundaries, for me - brisket was once this very inexpensive cut of meat, but nowadays it's not, especially when sourced from a small local farm! And corned beef is tasty but to me it still belongs those "good cheap eats" category. Whereas I love Jewish holiday brisket. So, would CSA meat turn it into something amazing, something that makes it more worth doing than my old standby?



Alas, the answer for me was "no". Fun to eat corned beef I made myself, nice and pretty, but mostly tasted just like the industrially corned ones at the supermarket, to me. I vote for just corning tongue next time and I'll save the next brisket for Passover. However, my mother-in-law, visiting from Croatia where the supermarkets do not abound with corned beef every March, is thinking about bringing some pink salt home with her...

On another note, I did also brine some porkchops, this month's apprentice challenge. That was a bit more of a revelation, to be honest - 2 hours in a simply spiced brine makes for a totally transformed piece of pork - different texture, different flavor - not quite a pork chop, not quite a ham either.

Pancetta Starts with P

This month's Charcutepalooza challenge was curing bacon or pancetta. I split the difference and chose the pancetta recipe but without the rolling. The fresh bacon / belly I had in my freezer was a pretty small amount - the wrong shape to roll it up into a pretty spiral. It'll taste the same anyway. And it wound up fairly pretty and round:




Apparently I should have removed the skin before curing - at least if I was going to roll it up into a cylinder which now has a curved, hard, skin on the end. Oh well. Lesson learned for next time. And there will be a next time. YUM.

I was saving my last few parsnips from the winter farmshare this season for one of my favorite dishes starring parsnips. Conveniently, it also needs pancetta. I first found a version of this recipe from Martha Stewart. (I know, I know.. but it's tasty, and simple.) Martha obviously doesn't serve this to kids in pre-k, or have the same sense of humor as I do, though, so she ignores the great alliteration potential - Pasta with Parsnips, Parmesan, Pancetta, Pepper, and Parsley. I made both the 5 year old and the other grownup laugh by pairing it with Pink grapefruit juice. "Mommy, why did you make grapefruit juice? That doesn't start with P." "Ah. But what color grapefruit did it come from?"

Duck Prosciuitto Chicken? Duck Prosciutto Bacon.

The first project in Charcutepalooza, the one I read about just as it was happening, was duck prosciutto. Take a duck breast, cover it in salt for a day, then hang it to dry for a week, and you're done. So I headed to Sherman Market, picked up a duck breast from New York State, and gave it a try.

I wasn't particularly afraid to start making the duck prosciutto. After all, I've tried salting cod before, and this wasn't so different, plus the weather cooperated. I didn't even check that I knew where our cheesecloth was before I stuck the duck breast into the salt in the fridge overnight. (And then I didn't. Know where it was, that is. Did you know that a "turkey stuffing kit" from the supermarket contains a cheesecloth bag, twine, and bits of metal that make adequate hooks to hang up a piece of meat to dry?)

What it turned out I was somewhat afraid of was eating the duck prosciutto. You see, it's supposed to turn firmer after a day dehydrating in the salt, and then firm up as it turns into a cured meat product hanging in a cool space for a week. And it seemed different - but I've never eaten duck prosciutto, nor have I eaten anything I've cured that wasn't also meant to be cooked before eating.

Then I decided that it looked a bit like bacon, with the nice red color, the gorgeous strip of fat on one side..the not-so-thin slices I was able to make... So our first taste of the duck prosciutto was fried up bacon-style, to go along with a little french toast. Tasty, and cured-tasting like bacon. Not too crispy because I like my bacon to taste meaty anyway. But still, not the most exciting texture, and not worth buying a duck breast and then watching it cure for a week, either.

So. I had to convince myself it was really cured. A little more poking, a little more prodding, a small nibble from my husband and I , and we proclaimed it safe to eat. (Also, tasty. Pretty intense flavor, and very smooth and silky.)

For lunch I ate this salad, with some generous slices of duck prosciutto without further cooking, beets, potatoes, and tiny greens grown in a greenhouse in Westport MA, and a little vinaigrette.

I'm still here.